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How To Clean And Maintain Hard Contact Lenses

February 14th, 2010    Subscribe To Our Feed

There are many types of lenses available in the market today, the classification of which depends upon their make (soft, hard), use (fancy, corrective), looks (transparent, opaque) and even styles.  

The most popular among the lenses are the soft lenses because they are extremely convenient to use and easy to maintain and clean. The hard contact lenses  which are also called GP (in short from Rigid Gas Permeable) are stiff because they contain very limited amounts of water and therefore require more care when cleaning in order to make sure damage does not occur.  

The Benefits of Using Hard Contact Lenses

Hard contact lenses are normally more resistant to wear and tear and last much longer than soft contact lenses. These could be worn for about 5-10 years if you take the trouble to maintain them well. At the same time, these lenses are more porous and hence allow more oxygen to reach your eyes. This is important if you suffer from dry eyes as it increases the comfort level for the wearer.

The Best Maintenance Routine For Hard Contact Lenses  

Before handling any type of contact lens, ensure that your hands are thoroughly clean.  Wash your hands with soap after which let plenty of water run over your hands to wash away the smell of the soap. Never use a fragrant soap when you handle your contacts. The best would be to use a fragrance-less anti bacterial soap.

Remove the hard contact lenses from your eyes and place them carefully in the center of your palm. Apply on each of the lenses about 3-5 drops of the contact lens cleaner recommended for your type of lenses and shake the lens gingerly to rinse in the same manner you would rinse a vessel. Take utmost care that you are not too rough about it or the lens would tear.

The washing could go on for about 20-30 seconds after which you have to rinse it with ordinary lukewarm tap water.  Ensure that there is no residue or dirt left on your lenses before you place the hard contact lenses in their special case. The next step would be to take the recommended conditioning solution and pour it gently above the cleaned hard contact lenses until it is completely submerged. Your cleaning process has been successfully completed.

Remember you have to do this every day when you remove the lenses at night so they would be clean and ready for use in the morning. Do no neglect cleaning the lenses as the slightest debris could cause you unimaginable pain and possible infection of the eyes.

How to remove contact lenses the easy way

February 14th, 2010    Subscribe To Our Feed

Contact lenses are great inventions that are steadily replacing glasses because of their exceptional convenience and esthetic value. The contacts are normally attached on the cornea of the eye and their use is completely harmless and painless. On the contrary, using contact lenses can make your life much easier, i.e. in sports, dancing, or when you are too conscious of how you look wearing glasses.

Learning How to Remove Contact Lenses Correctly

There are three major types of lenses depending upon their use, cost and quality: soft lenses which are made of very soft plastic, the hard contact lenses which are also known as GP or rigid Gas Permeable and lastly there are the semi-hard lenses. Before you learn how to remove contact lenses you need to learn how to put them on first.

Wash your hands with soap and then running water for a long time. It is important that your hands should be clean before you touch the lenses because the slightest impurity stuck on it can cause massive irritation or infection in the eye. Now, open your eyes wide and look at one or other side while slightly pushing in the lens with the concave part on the inside into the eye. As soon as it gets stuck to the eye, close you eyes and keep them closed for a little while to allow the tears if any, to run down. Be careful, sometimes your lenses could get washed out along with the tears.

At the end of the day before you go to sleep you should remove the lenses, clean them and store them in their little boxes dipped in the recommended solution. This would keep them soft and pliable for the next day’s use.  

It is easy to learn how to remove contact lenses provided you are patient and you practice the move for a couple of times. What you need to do is look down and open your eyes wide. With impeccably clean hands you grab very gently the contact lens from the eye (use your thumb ad forefinger) and pull. If everything is okay the lens would come into your hand without any problem.

How To Remove Contact Lenses When The Lens Is Stuck To The Eye

There is a simple technique on how to remove contact lenses when they are stuck to the eyes.  Sit down in a very comfortable chair with your head thrown back. Take the recommended eye drops and add a few drops to the eyes, say about 3-5 should be just about sufficient. Close your eyes and allow the liquid swirl behind the closed eye lids. As the eye drop would permeate the eye lens, you could easily remove it through the steps described a little earlier.

Change Your Appearance With Colored Contacts

February 12th, 2010    Subscribe To Our Feed

If you wear contact lenses, you should know that there are alternatives to just the boring clear ones. You can actually get colored contact lenses that will make your eyes appear a different color. If you have brown eyes and have always wanted blue eyes, all you do is pop in the blue colored contact lenses and there you go. Colored contact lenses aren’t just for those who need vision correction, either. Even if you don’t need to wear contacts or glasses, you can still get colored contacts that will change the color of your eyes without affecting your vision one bit. For the latter, you can order them off the internet or at your local eye doctor’s office. However, if you need to wear contacts for vision correction, there are a few things you need to consider.

Ask Your Doctor

If you already wear contact lenses and you’re interested in the colored ones, make an appointment with your eye doctor to discuss this option. The colored contacts will likely be a little more expensive than your normal prescription but it’s worth it if you really want different colored eyes. There are certain circumstances where you may not be able to wear colored contacts, however, and that’s why you should discuss this with your doctor before you buy them.

Certain Circumstances

Your doctor may not want you to wear colored contacts if you need contacts for vision correction if you have astigmatism. That’s because the contacts must rest on your eyes just right if you hope to benefit from wearing them. However, they may make color contacts for astigmatism so ask your doctor about this.  

Try Them First

It’s recommended that you try a pair of colored contacts first before you buy them. Some people end up not liking how their eyes look with colored contacts. If they’re expensive and you don’t end up liking them, you’re going to be out a bunch of money for nothing. Your doctor may have a sample pair on hand so ask for these before you make a big purchase.

Change Your Appearance

When you’re happy with your colored contacts, you can change your appearance at will. You can change the color of your eyes just like you’d change your clothes or shoes. It’s very freeing and it really makes your eyes stand out. So get a pair of colored contacts and see how you like them.

Colored contacts for dark eyes

February 12th, 2010    Subscribe To Our Feed

Color Contacts for Dark Eyes

Light eyes on a dark skinned or dark haired beauty can stop you in your tracks. That beautiful, male actor who plays Warrick Brown on CSI: Las Vegas comes immediately to mind. It is a unique set of genetics that can bring about naturally bright, brilliant eyes. Dominant genes include brown eyes, brown hair, and the ability to roll your tongue. None of these dominant traits are as lovely as the rarer recessive genes like green, blue, and yellow eyes and fiery red or white blonde hair. If you aren’t blessed with show-stopping genetics, today’s trend is to buy cosmetic enhancements. Hair can be lightened and colored contacts for dark eyes can be bought, although I don’t think there is a cure for rolling your tongue. The focus of this article is on purchasing colored contacts for dark eyes.

When colored contacts first came on the market, interested buyers like me were informed that we really must stay within a similar range of color to our own eye color or go darker in color. It was not possible to wear a bright blue contact on a dark brown eye. Advances in contact lenses have made it easily possible to change your eye color to virtually any color you want. There are even special effects contact lenses that can give wearers bright “wolf eyes” or “white out” eyes. For those who are slightly less adventurous but still desire an aesthetic, color contacts for dark eyes are an excellent alternative.   

Where to Buy Color Contacts for Dark Eyes

Your eye doctor’s office is the best place to start when buying contact lenses. You may need a prescription and even if you do not want corrective lenses, you will need to be fitted for contact lenses. Once fitted, there are four types of colored contact lenses to choose from: visibility tints, enhancement tints, opaque color tints, and light filtering tints. The differences in the four types are as follows:  

Visibility tints: have a green or blue tint so that you can see the lens but do not change eye color

Enhancement tints: are similar colors to your eyes but subtly enhance/brighten color  

Opaque color tints: deeper color contacts for dark eyes to make natural eyes appear dramatically different/lighter in color

Light filtering tints: used in sports to make certain tints stand out-such as yellows in tennis (for the tennis ball) to enhance overall game play

See in the Dark with Glow in the Dark Contact Lenses

February 12th, 2010    Subscribe To Our Feed

There have been many innovations in the contact lens industry in the last 20 years. There are short-term and long-term use contact lenses. There are lenses for dry eyes, lenses for eyes with astigmatism, and lenses for eyes needing multifocal vision correction. Additionally, there are contact lenses for people who have no need for vision correction. There are contact lenses available for cosmetic reasons only. Colored contact lenses, cosmetic and special effects contact lenses serve the purpose of making the eye appear a certain way. There may be a true need for this, such as in a person born with eyes of two different colors. This person may choose colored lenses to correct this condition. The need may be only to create look, or costume. Or this may be for special effect, such as glow in the dark contact lenses on a movie werewolf. Contact lenses are used in Hollywood films quite often. Many styles of these lenses are now available to the public- though a prescription and fitting from an eye doctor is often still necessary.    

Some of the most popular “costume” contact lenses are glow in the dark contact lenses, cat’s eye and snake eye contact lenses, and colored or multicolored contact lenses. Brands like “Wild Eyes,” “Glowing FX,” and “Crazy Lenses” offer costume contact lenses with or without a prescription. Even non-prescription, or “plano,” lenses should be fitted by an eye doctor. Be advised that costume lenses can be toxic and irritating to the eyes so always go with a name brand and get a professional fitting.  

See No Evil

The types of special effect contact lenses are infinite. Dramatic revelers can even have lenses custom made to create their own unique look. Facts about some of the most popular types of costume lenses follow:

-Glow in the dark contact lenses are expensive and often sold out. Prices can run $100-$300 per pair. Most require a prescription and advise that they are for “theatrical purposes only.”

-Black sclera contact lenses make the entire eye appear black. Black sclera-mirrored lenses allow your friends to see themselves in the rolling black void of your eye. Freak out!

Tips for wearing costume lenses include: get fitted by a doctor, wear for only a few hours at a time, only order from your eye doctor or a reputable online site, do not share with friends as this can cause eye infection, and clean lenses per the instructions. Lastly, costume lenses like glow in the dark contact lenses can frighten unsuspecting motorists, party-goers, and passersby. Oh, and glow in the dark contact lenses will not actually allow you to see in the dark, so use with caution.

Advantages and disadvantages of contact lenses

February 12th, 2010    Subscribe To Our Feed

You’ve just had an eye exam and you’ve been told you need glasses. However, you can’t stand the thought of yourself with glasses so you’re considering contact lenses. You’d like to know, though, whether contact lenses are good or bad. What are the pros and cons of wearing contact lenses? Will you be able to see the same as you would with glasses? Will you irritate your eyes by placing little plastic discs on them? Do you need to change them often and, if so, is that going to be expensive? These all of these questions should be discussed with your doctor before you buy contact lenses but this article will at least let you in on a few pros and cons of wearing these alternatives to glasses.

The Pros

The pros to contacts, some would say, far outweigh the negatives. First of all, you’re not wearing glasses so your appearance will not change. In fact, nobody will know you’re wearing them unless you tell them. Also, contacts lenses allow you to have perfect peripheral vision. Often times, you need to turn your head with glasses if you want to see to the side because they only cover the front of your eyes. But probably the most important pro of wearing contact lenses is that you can play sports and do other activities without your glasses getting in the way or without fear of them falling off your face and breaking.  

The Cons

There are some cons, however, to wearing contacts. Depending on the type you have, you likely will have to take them out at night and put them in a solution. While this isn’t a big deal, doing this with such small objects leaves the chance that they’ll fall off your finger or out of the case and onto the floor. They are very hard to see and thus can be lost easily. You will also likely have to buy new ones every few months. With glasses, you only need to buy them once. But the biggest con to wearing contact lenses is that, if they get scratched or become dirty, they can irritate your eyes and they can cause infections. However, if you take care of them, this is unlikely to happen.

So you see, the pros to wearing contact lenses outweigh the cons. Many people wear contacts nowadays as an alternative to wearing glasses. They are less cumbersome, they allow you to have peripheral vision, they won’t fall off your face and break and you can choose other colors so that you can actually change the appearance of your eyes. So if you’re thinking about getting contacts, you’re making a very good decision.

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