Contact Lens Care Instructions

Video Transcript

"I'm Dr. Jim Kirkconnell of Bellevue Eyecare Center in Nashville, Tennessee. Let's talk a minute about how to take care of contacts. One thing is you only want to use the lens the way that you and the doctor have talked about. That means that there are some lenses which are sleepable and there are some lenses which are not. That also means that most lenses that are sleepable, you can only sleep in up to six nights. There are only two products on the market which allow you to sleep in up to thirty nights. Now, the keyword is up to. You have to have clear vision in the morning and comfortable eyes within five minutes of getting up for me to say that you're successfully sleeping in contacts and there's no guarantee how long you can comfortably sleep in contact lenses. The other thing is that there's a replacement schedule that you and the doctor talk about ahead of time as far as how oft to replace them. Most contact lenses today are replaced every two weeks. There are those that are more durable and they're replaced monthly. There is a small segment which is daily disposable where you wear them once. You throw them away. You never have to clean them. You never have to soak them in disinfectant. You save that expense. That is a small proportion of our practice. That is almost one hundred percent of Japan because they're very hygiene conscious. The other thing is you have to of course wash your hands before you wash lenses or your eyes, and the case is important to be kept clean. You want to put it under hot water once a week and shake it dry. Let it air out. And also those cases are a big source of contamination for people who get either bacteria or viral infections so you want to replace that case every three months. At our office, we tell people if you can't find the cases that come with the solutions, come by and we'll just give you cases as it's that important because they're not expensive for us. So you want to keep up with your wearing schedule the way that you've discussed. You want to disinfect your lenses and you want to replace them when you're supposed to and also you want to remember to not keep those cases forever that way you're more likely to avoid getting an eye infection, which is the one thing that is very different compared to glasses because now you've put something on your eye and you are ten times more likely in general to have an eye infection wearing contact lenses than if you're just using glasses."