Taking out contact lenses

[watervole]

I'm still not able to wear these lenses overnight, but they seem to be fine all day (pretty much) now.

I've found a better way of taking them out that doesn't make my eye hurt.

I've already changed from putting them in/out when I'm looking down rather than forward. This stops the lens falling off my finger!

Once you've got to the stage where you can put the lens in by muscle memory rather than by looking at the lens on your finger, then you can look down (or up, take your pick) while inserting the lens onto the white of the eye and look up once it's safely touching the eye.

When taking the lens out, put a finger gently on the lens and look upwards. This slides the lens off the iris onto the white of the eye.  It's much less painful to remove the lens from the white than from the iris - I presume there's less nerve endings there. 

This trick has made a surprising difference, especially when removing the lenses. 

Comments

[emmzzi.livejournal.com]

also worth getting a teeny suction pump from the optician for those times it just won't budge or to get bits if it tears in your eye! more a problem for me and my daft long fingernails I think!

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Suddenly, I'm very glad I have short fingernails!

[twinfair.livejournal.com]

Actually, this is exactly the way I was taught to remove the lenses by my optician. He told me you are not supposed to remove the lens from the cornea as you could scratch it but from the white. This makes it easier because the eye is not perfectly round and the lens has shaped itself to the cornea, so moving it to the white will reduce the suction on the lens. After time you will be ABLE to remove it from anywhere really, but I still try to move it just a little, and if your eye is dry, you may need to move right to the white it as you described.

The suction pump sounds like some sort of torture device but fear not, I have never had a lens disintegrate into "bits" in my eye and nor has it stuck to the extent I couldn't budge it with a little saline solution.

[lucas-t-bear.livejournal.com]

I have a suction thingy too (it's just a rubber capsule with a tiny suction cup at one end) but I've never been able to master in 18 years of wearing lenses.

My optician eventually* taught me to just pull at the side of my eye to stretch the lids tight. The bottom lid just catches the bottom of the lens and it pops out. I suspect that would only work for gas permeable but if you have a lens that is sufficiently rigid that it loses suction if it's not on the right-shaped part of your eye, it may work.



*Eventually - he's also my cousin and so naturally let me suffer for a little while trying to do it the 'proper' way.

[rockwell-666.livejournal.com]

This is the method I use too: I look down, cup one hand under the eye, then use the other to gently stretch the lids by pulling with a finger at the corner of the eye and blink and the lens (usually) just pops out.

Of course that is with RGP lenses, so I'm not sure if it works with soft lenses.

I tried the little suction cups when I first started wearing lenses, but they were a total PITA and it was much easier just to use fingers.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I most often move the lens to the white when my eye is dry; if it's wet enough, I have no problem (after 13 years of wearing soft lenses) removing them from anywhere, really. :)