With proper use, contact lenses are a great vision correction alternative to eyeglasses. Unfortunately, many people don’t understand how to properly and safely wear and care for these delicate devices. Your eye doctor will give you thorough instructions on how to care for and handle your contact lenses, and it’s important that you follow them.
Read on as the eye specialists at Alderwood Optical & Canyon Park Vision Clinic explain the right way to handle and care for contact lenses.
It’s a practical penny-pinching trick to stop wasting your old contact lens solution. Simply mix it with a new bottle and it’ll be good to go, right? Not quite. In fact, your eye doctor does not recommend this practice at all. The germ-killing ability of your contact lens solution can weaken over time, and mixing the old with the new can compromise the effectiveness of the solution, increasing your risk of eye infections.
Swimming or taking a shower while wearing contact lenses is a bad idea. You generally want to keep the lenses in a sterile environment for as long as you’re using them. Coming into contact with water can expose them to germs, which can then pass through the lens and into your eyes.
There are certain types of contact lenses that your eye doctor will recommend you wear at all times, even while you’re asleep. However, for most types of contacts, this is not advisable. Studies show that sleeping with your contacts on increases your chances of contracting infections by up to eight times.
At Alderwood Optical & Canyon Park Vision Clinic, we offer a wide variety of eye care services. Give us a call at (425) 771-8472 and (425) 485-0430 or fill out our online contact form to schedule a consultation with one of our specialists today. We serve Redmond and Kirkland, WA.