Now, one of the problems with contact lenses is the fact that they’re just so thin, small, and often difficult to see clearly. So when it comes to removing them, particularly as a new contact lens wearer you do need to be fully concentrated on the task at hand and depending on what you’ve been doing during the day and also the condition that you bring yourself when it’s time to remove your lenses, then this is not always an easy task.
I recall a case in the news some time back about a surgeon who discovered a lady who was having problems and it turned out she had 27 contact lenses embedded in her eyes and they’d been there for a few years. This was also a person who was experienced with contact lens wear as well and it just goes to show that even as an experienced contact lens wearer you may still be prone to losing contact lenses in your eyes, if you’re not careful, obviously leaving contact lenses in your eye is not good and can lead to a range of issues. Sometimes they do just hide in the upper in particular, but also the lower extremes of the eyelid pockets and if they’re there long enough, the eye tissue can grow over them and this is not pretty.
So here are my steps to make sure that whether your contact lenses are fully out or whether they’re still in.
Step 1 is to prepare for the drop.
Now, if your contact lenses do drop out, you certainly want to know about it, and a common cause of confusion for wearers is when they think the lenses have dropped out following an attempt to remove them, but because they were standing up, they can’t be sure whether the lens had fallen down or whether the lenses still in their eyes. Now, this then leaves you wondering, what exactly to do, and in this situation, not being sure whether it’s on the floor or whether it’s in your eye does cause a lot of confusion and can lead people then worried for days about where the lens might be. So the simple remedy for this is to sit down, if possible, and to remove your contact lenses over a dark-colored towel. So spread out the towel, ready to catch any falling lenses and the towel can be placed on your lap or on a surface that you’re leaning on. Now, the reason I recommend a dark towel is just because the contrast between the towel and the lens is more obvious and it makes it easier to see the lens on your towel sometimes in a white towel, the lens is also quite difficult to spot. If you’ve tried to get your lenses out and it’s not an imposition on your eye and it’s not on the towel, then it may well be reasonable to assume that the lens is lost in the eye and then it may be worth carrying on to retrieve the lens, or that you need to seek professional help to help you get the lens out.
Step 2, keep your hands where you can see them.
So another common thing that happens is that people lose their contact lenses by flicking them away or rubbing them on their clothing without realizing it as they rub their fingers on their jeans or their top out of habit after attempting to remove the contact lens. So to help rule out the possibility that your lens may have unknowingly attached itself to your finger and inadvertently been flicked off as you’ve gone to brush your fingers upon your clothes, then it’s important to make sure you keep your hands in front of you and avoid moving them out of sight. So that means if you’re somebody who is in the habit of rubbing your hands on your clothes just to dry them, then that’s not a habit anyway that you should be doing as a contact lens wearer so you don’t cross-contaminate your contact lenses, but as best as you can, you need to just try and break that habit.
If you do need to dry your hands, you can place a box of tissues on the surface in front of you just so that your hands are always in sight if you do need to reach for a tissue to dry your fingers. So again, here, the idea is that if you can limit all of the possible options for where your contact lens, I can get lost, then you will know when you may need to worry about whether the lens is still in your eye or not.
Step 3, learn to reset.
The cause of people losing contact lenses in their eyes is the result of people trying over and over again to get the contact lenses out without stopping to make sure that the lens is where they assume and where they think it is in the first place on the eye. As a result, the lens can get knocked further and further out of position until it gets stuck up in the corners of the eyelid pockets. So the remedy here is to remember, to pause after perhaps two failed attempts to remove your contact lenses and then at this point to reset and to start again.
So how do you reset?
Well, first, close the other eye and look across the room to make sure that you can see clearly. If you can, then you can assume that your contact lenses in place, If you can’t see clearly, then the lens may be out of position. So to fix this, you can just close your eyes and gently massage the eye, massaging from the outer eyelids inwards, then open your eyes and take a few blinks to allow tears to flow underneath the contact lens. This usually has the effect of causing the contact lens to reposition itself to the center, at this point, you can then close the other eye and check again to make sure that your vision is clear. If it is, then you know that you successfully put the lens back into the right position and you’ve effectively reset, and of course, you can repeat this several times if necessary, until you’ve got the lens back into the straight-ahead central position on the eye.
Now you can have a fresh attempt at removing your contact lenses safe in the knowledge that the lenses are central where they need to be and this then makes it more likely now that you’ll be able to get your contact lenses out and once you become more experienced in contact lenses, then you probably won’t be doing these steps every time. However, it’s worth keeping these steps in mind for the times when you’re probably most at risk of losing your contact lenses in the eye and these times may include when you are very tired, when you’re in a rush to get your contact lenses out. Maybe you’ve had a long day and they’ve been uncomfortable and you want to get them out as soon as possible, may also be when you’ve had too much to drink, alcohol on contact lenses can often be a combination which leads to problems getting your lenses out and problems with lenses getting lost. Also, if you’ve been crying quite a lot on the lenses are floating in tears, then that may be an opportunity as well for the lens to slip out and you may well lose them and get confused about whether they are in the eye or they’ve fallen to the side somewhere as well.
If you’ve tried these tips and you still feel that your lens may still be in your eye, then you should certainly book an appointment to see your optometrist as soon as possible just to get professional help, and optometrists do have ways of being able to assess your eye and to make sure that there is no presence of a rogue contact lens and we can help you get the lenses out effectively and quickly.
On the other hand, if you feel that your problem might be more of a technical one and you’re struggling with your contact lens removal technique, then it’s a good idea to refresh yourself on the basics that you were taught about getting your contact lenses out safely and efficiently. If you don’t have that information or you’re not sure how to do it, then don’t worry, I’ve done a video on that before and I’ve got some useful tips that I think are important to help you quickly fix any issues that you might have with removing your contact lenses quickly and effectively first time every time. To check out the video here is the link below;
How to take out contact lenses (3 Fixes) https://youtu.be/b6yafiOnrTM,
– 7 Good reasons to start contact lenses https://youtu.be/qp1gDgMLm40
- How to put in contact lenses first time (every time!) https://youtu.be/bl2zvqMoqWE
Let me know in the comments section below, have you ever lost the contact lens in your eye? What happened? How did you get it out? Let me know in the comments section below.
I look forward to catching you guys in the next one.
Take care.
