﻿If you're really struggling with uncomfortable contact lenses,
then you really do want to get that looked at by professional contact lens fitter.
However, before you do that, you might want to check out these quick
fixes to see if they solve your problem first.
Hey, and thank you for watching.
I'm optometrist Martin Oguzie, and this channel is all about helping you
to see better see more comfortably and also to be less anxious about your eyes.
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Let's get straight to these tips that can really help to make your contact lenses
more comfortable in those moments when you're struggling.
First off, it's a technique that I call the drag and blink.
Now, this really involves just grabbing the edge of your lenses,
just placing your finger on it, sliding down, then blinking.
Once you do that,
tears will get under your lens and it will cause your legs to recenter itself.
And in doing that, then any bits of fluff
or eyelash on the lens will be dislodged once the lens moves back into place.
Often you can find that this can make a real instant improvement to comfort.
And this kind of issue is often common when you first put your contact lenses in.
And that may be due to a piece of eyelash or an air bubble that goes into your lens,
so the drag and blink helps to straighten out your lens and also instantly restores
comfort. Number two is to lubricate your eye.
This is great for recurring discomfort
when doing tasks like reading a computer, jogging and things like that.
Now, the problem with these task is that they often just lead to drying out
of your lens because your lens is more exposed to the air,
because while doing this task, you tend to steer more and less often.
And that really tests the quality of your
lens in terms of its ability to resist drying out.
So I want to do here is to go and purchase some lubricating eye drops,
either from your local pharmacy or supermarket or even Amazon,
and you can get some drops that are made specifically for contact lenses
and they will just restore the moisture back into the lenses.
If you're doing these tasks regularly, then I'd recommend you just have these
kind of products on hand to regularly re-wet your lenses on an ongoing basis.
Now, if this continues to be a persistent problem, I do recommend you have a chat
with your contact lens a fitter, just to make sure that you've been given
an appropriate lens for the task that you want to do.
And in this case, you obviously going to need
something that's going to be a more resistant to drying out.
Number three is rinse and resoak.
Now, if your contact lenses are reusable
contact lenses, then it's also worth carrying a case
with you with solution in the contact lens case.
And that way, when you have a situation where you may be concerned that your
lenses are perhaps drying out too much or they may be contaminated,
if you've walked into perhaps a dusty or smoky room, then what you can do is just
take your contact lenses out, soak them in the case with the solution
for a few minutes, and then take them out and put them back in your eye.
And often you can find that this is a good
way of resolving the discomfort that you may get,
that may be to do with the environment that you're in. Number four
is to reverse your contact lenses.
A proportion of contact lens discomfort,
I'm sure, will be down to the lenses being put in the wrong way.
And it's often very difficult for people to tell whether the lenses are
in the correct direction because many lenses nowadays are just so super thin.
And when you sit them in the wrong
direction, you can often look just as it does when it's set the right way.
So for that reason,
you have some manufacturers that puts a faint engravings on the lenses to help
you tell whether they are the right way, such as the engraving.
1, 2, 3.
And if it's inside, I'll read 3,2,1.
So look out for those kind of marks on your lenses.
Not all lenses have them by any means,
but do make sure that if you're in doubt, you can also just try a lens
in the reverse way and see if the comfort and the vision is improved that way.
And five is replace your contact lenses.
If your lenses once you put them
in a cause, you are redness, discomfort, then you want to make sure that you look
over your contact lens just to make sure that there's no signs of any tears
or any kind of contaminant on the lens that is causing this problem.
If in doubt, just get rid of that lens
and replace it with a brand new one, that resolve the problem, then great,
if it doesn't, then you do need to see
a contact lens fitter about it and stop wearing your contact lenses for the time
being. Number six is to change your contact lens solution.
I think this can easily be one of the most
underrated causes of problems with contact lens wear.
And that's because many people don't
realize that preservatives in your solutions can cause irritation to some
people and a good proportion of people have allergies to these preservatives.
So you can simply check whether this is
an issue for you by trying an alternative solution that is preservative free.
And once you've gone through these steps
and you're still having problems, then it's important to make sure that you
get seen by your contact lens fitter straight away.
It's important just to make sure that
if these issues aren't just down to things that you can change,
then they can examine your eyes make sure there's no signs of infection or
anything else that's going on, and then the final point is that it may be
the case that you need to have your lenses refitted to something else
and this may mean moving to a different
brand altogether or a different type of contact lens altogether
that may well suit the situation that using them better.
But in any case,
you know, you should never struggle on with uncomfortable lenses beyond,
you know, just a short period of time of checking
for these quick fixes that you can manage yourself.
I will leave any products I've talked
about in the description box below, so please check them out
and please do subscribe to the channel hit that notification bell as
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And I look forward to catching you guys in the next video.
Take care.