How to wear and care contact lenses during the epidemic
The safe manner of wearing contact lenses has always been a hot topic to myopia patients. Because contact lenses are directly contact with our ocular surface, if you are not careful enough, it may cause surface damage, infection and pain. In severe cases they may even damage your sight.
Currently a new coronavirus (n-COV) is raging, and some cases have shown that transmission routes of the n-COV may include the conjunctiva. These reports causing fear among people who need wear CLs. Is it suitable to wear contact lenses during virus outbreak? If you really have to use contact lenses, will the wrong way of using them lead to inadvertent infection?
EuroEyes ophthalmologist give professional advice
There is no blood vessels on the cornea, so the cornea needs to absorb oxygen through the air, and ordinary soft contact lenses generally have poor oxygen permeability. Long-term wearing may cause corneal hypoxia, epithelial cells deficiency, and affect your vision. At the same time, it may cause micro-organism infection. Therefore, it is unadvisable to wear CLs during the virus outbreak.
To the people who have to use contact lenses, how to wear and care for them correctly?
1. Preparation before wearing contact lenses
Before wearing contact lenses, you must ensure that your hands are clean and wash your hands strictly according to the 7-step hand-washing method (below). During the epidemic period, many people brought products such as alcohol-base disinfectant or chlorine-containing disinfectant to clean their hands and other materials. After completing disinfection, dry your hand to ensure that there is no residual disinfectant before wearing contact lenses.
2. Hygienic environment
You need to choose a relatively hygienic environment, sterilize the surface of the contact lens case and nursing liquid box in advance. Do not keep long fingernails, as bacteria on the hands may contaminate the lenses and scratch the lenses.
3. Steps for wearing and removing contact lenses
Wearing: Take the lens out of the lens case, place the convex side of the lens on the tip of your index finger, add one drop of moisturizing eye liquid on the concave side, and then carefully place the lens on eye. After blinking several times, check if the lenses are on center of the cornea. It is recommended to wear and remove the lenses in the order of “right to left”. Removing: Add 1-2 drops of moisturizing eye drops into the eyes before removing the lenses, blink several times, and make sure the lenses slide on the cornea before removing the lenses.
How to take care of your contact lenses
1. Use enough lens cleaning solution: after taking out of the lens, rub and rinse the lens with a multi-function care solution gently, and store in a multi-function care solution or hydrogen peroxide care solution – do not use any saline solution. Every day you use your lenses you should empty out and refill the case with fresh solution.
2. Replace the case regularly when expired, the inside and outside of the lens case of the contact lens need to be cleaned daily, we should rinse it thoroughly with fresh solution after each use.
3. Take care when you are putting in your lenses, try not to touch other parts with the hands. Do not rub your eyes when you are wearing CLs.
4. To prevent contamination, never forget to replace the lid of solution bottle after use. The care solution can be stored under room temperature and protected from light, but preserved in the refrigerator is not necessary.
1. If you have any recent contact history with patients with new coronavirus patients, please stop wearing contact lenses in time and observe the general condition for 14 days.
2. If symptoms such as fever and other discomforts occur during the observation period, you should go to hospital and consult professional physician as soon as possible.
3. After exclude n-COV suspected possibility (which means there weren’t any discomforts happened during observation period) – if you have urgent clinic symptoms such as eye redness, eye pain, foreign body sensation, and increased discharge in the eyes, please consult a professional ophthalmologist in time. If you do not have the symptoms as mentioned above, hospitalization is not recommend.
About EuroEyes
The EuroEyes Clinic Group is a globally successful company that was founded 26 years ago in Hamburg and has its headquarters there until today. In addition to locations throughout Germany, EuroEyes is also represented in China and Denmark. The company offers patients the full range of refractive surgery for the correction of visual disorders. Using state-of-the-art eye laser and lens surgery procedures, EuroEyes treats more than 25,000 patients each year with nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, presbyopia or cataract. The treatment enables the start of a life free of glasses and contact lenses without any impairment of visual quality.
+49 40 348 09 29 0 – service center in Germany (English, German and Chinese)
Monday to Friday: 08:00 – 20:00
Saturday: 09:00 – 14:00
Join our Newsletter