in this video I'm going to share with you three different ways on how to
clean soft contact lenses and how to clean the contact lens case let's take a
look. hello and welcome I am dr. Joseph Allen here from doctor eye health the
channel helps to learn about the eyes vision and finding the best vision
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at any point throughout the video you can always check out the show notes and
links in the description below for additional information and tips about
cleaning contact lenses and the contact lens case but Believe It or Not most
people have no idea how to clean the contacts correctly but I'm gonna show
you how to do it so you can not only disinfect the lenses and reduce your
chances of infection but also improve the comfort of the wearing your lenses
now the first thing before you ever handle any contact lenses make sure you
wash your hands just to make sure there's no nasty bugs on there that
could actually get into your eye now the most common and simplest way to clean
your contact lenses is actually with some type of disinfecting solution now
this has happens to be the opti free puremoist brand it's the one that I
find very comfortable but there are many different brands that are
over-the-counter but I do recommend you use the one that your doctor recommended
for you and your type of contact lenses now depending on the solution you are
using the instructions on the back of the bottle may actually vary but I
encourage you to actually read them the first step believe it or not most people
never follow the first step and it's actually one of the most significant and
most beneficial steps to cleaning your contacts and that is to rub the lenses
so the instruction says to remove the contact lens put it in the palm of your
hand go ahead and use a little bit of the opti free solution and then actually
rub the lens for 20 seconds now the real secret is yes rub the lens but don't rub
the lens too hard when you rub the lens you will break up certain proteins that
have kind of latched on to the sides of those lenses by breaking up those
proteins they'll generally be more comfortable you also kill some nasty
types of bacteria by doing that little rubbing motion but I do encourage you to
be gentle with it because if you rub too hard you can actually tear or rip the
lenses and because you're breaking off all those extra proteins and debris that
are stuck on the lens generally the lenses will be more comfortable over the
course of their wear whether they're a 2-week or a one-month lens
rubbing the lenses for at least 20 seconds the opti free puremoist solution
does require you to rinse each side of the lens with a steady stream of
solution for at least 10 seconds again that rinses off all that extra debris or
bacteria that could be resting on the lens then it's just a matter of putting
your contact lens into the case and then filling the case with the opti free puremoist
solution making sure that the lens is completely submerged actually in the
cleaning solution otherwise if it's just resting on the top then the inner
surface of the lens may not actually be getting any disinfecting on it now again
every solutions a little different opti free puremoist does say to soak
the lens for at least 6 hours so most people do take out their contact lenses
before going to bed so that gives you usually plenty of time to get those six
hours in now if you're cleaning your lenses this way it's really important
that you do not reuse the contact lens solution you want to make sure that you
dump that out in the next morning and then make sure you refill this the
following night if you reuse the disinfecting solution it's no longer
gonna be working as well and it is gonna greatly increase your chance of an
infection now when you put your contact lenses in and you empty out the solution
from the case make sure you leave the case actually facing upward to air dry
that will actually allow the solution to dry out and kill any other bacteria that
happened to be living in the case now it's actually best practices to clean
this case as well sometimes you'll actually see nasty little debris and
other sort of protein build-up within the lens case and yeah that can actually
get on to your eye and not good so alongside drying out the contact lens
case every night I actually strongly recommend that you actually clean these
contact lens cases every week basically you just put a little bit of
disinfecting solution into the lens well swirl a finger around in there a little
bit agitate any sort of proteins that may have been built up and then go ahead
and rinse it out with additional some solution and then again dry it out by
leaving it to air dry in general it's actually recommended
that you replace these cases at least every three months but for the most part
if you're buying some type of contact lens solution free cases come alongside
that solution and generally you're buying one of these bottles every month
or so of course if you ever misplace their case or you just need a new one
you can always buy new ones at the store you can buy them in bulk online or you
can even reach out to your local optical or eye care clinic they'll usually have
a couple extra space for you now I'm going to show you how to clean it
contact lenses with a hydrogen peroxide solution specifically this one is with
clear care plus now there's many different brands of hydrogen peroxides
cleaning solutions out there but this has just happens to be my favorite now
hydrogen peroxide solutions have the benefit of being non preservative and
they actually do clean the lenses extremely effectively and they remove
some of the debris from the lenses I have a lot of patients who swear that
this lens solution actually helps them wear their lenses longer but on the flip
side I also have patients who don't like the hydrogen peroxide solution because
they feel it makes their lenses drier but have you ever tried hydrogen
peroxide solution if so let me know in the comments what you think but just
like the other solutions it's really important that you read the instructions
on the back specifically the section that's highlighted in red hydrogen
peroxide can actually burn the eye if it's not used properly and you'll notice
that this solution has to sit in a specialized case this case actually has
a special disc built into the case itself and that actually interacts with
the hydrogen peroxide and then turns that into complete sterile water but it
does require at least six hours now I want to show you this because a lot of
people if you've never seen this type of case you're probably looking at it and
you're like what is this thing but it's actually a pretty smart design you
actually just go ahead and flip down both sides either one side is gonna be
kind of color-coded and you can actually see a little are written on there you
remove your right lens put that on the side with the little R written on it
take your left lens put that on the left side then you go ahead and you close the
case once you close the case you actually go ahead and rinse the lenses
with a gentle stream of five seconds with the hydrogen peroxide solution on
each side again that's just gonna rinse off any sort of extra debris or bacteria
that are actually latched on to that lens then you'll go ahead and fill the
lens cup all the way up until the fill line that's that little translucent line
that goes all the way across make sure you don't overfill it or under fill it
otherwise it's either gonna spill over or it's going to actually not completely
disinfect the entire lens after filling the lens cup you basically just put the
lens holder into the cup and then screw on the top once it screwed on don't
shake the solution but you'll actually start to
see a reaction forming on the bottom of the case and it'll start to actually
physical at the solution sit for at least six hours for it to convert over
to sterile water but usually it's never a problem but it's important that
whenever you have to buy new solution that you go ahead and dispose of the
previous case the little element that actually activates with hydrogen
peroxide does actually wear off and so if you continue to try to reuse the same
case over and over again eventually it's gonna stop activating and then it's just
gonna not convert it into sterile water and ouch if for some reason or by
accident you do get some of the hydrogen peroxide solution in your eye whether
directly from the bottle or you get it because the solution didn't completely
convert to sterile water make sure you immediately take out your contact lenses
certainly consider flushing the eye and then contact your local eye care
provider because you want to make sure you didn't get a corneal burn now the
third way I'm gonna show you on how to clean your lenses is actually with a
completely new thing to me it's something that I never learned in school
and to my knowledge maybe even is kind of a new way to clean contacts and then
just with an ultrasonic lens cleaner now this is becoming kind of a newer thing
that I've seen on the Internet a couple of different products are out there this
one is actually from a company called iclear they actually sent this to me as
a gift but it certainly is not gonna affect my review of it I'm certainly
going to tell you all of its positives and its negatives now the whole point of
ultrasonic cleaners whether they're used for contact lenses or even for glasses
like we have here in the clinic they actually activate and really shake the
lens extremely fast and that actually will break off extra debris and proteins
from the lenses and the whole point is to really clean the lens and prevent it
from feeling gritty or dirty when it's sitting on your eye therefore improving
comfort now this case from iclear is actually pretty cool it does come with
kind of a cool mirror on the inside it's got a couple of different tools so that
you can actually pick up the lenses like this little soft tweezers here it has
this little DMV or a little kind of plunger to go ahead and remove the
contact lenses if that's something you like to do but actually has this little
tray inside that you fit your contact lenses in kind of similar to the
hydrogen peroxide solution and then you actually set it inside of this little
metal well then you fill the well actually with solution
and then you have this little button that you press and it actually turns on
and that activates the ultrasound mechanism and that goes on for about two
minutes after the two minutes are done you do have to then dispose of the
solution then you actually have to take the lenses and put them into another
case and basically repeat the process with the disinfecting solution now to be
completely honest I do think this technology is pretty cool the whole idea
of using ultrasound to clean the lens is kind of kind of a new and upcoming thing
maybe it's the way we do it in the future but for coming in at a price
point to $50 u.s. at the timing of this video I do think it's a little pricey
considering you can probably get the same effect from just rubbing two lenses
but again if you're somebody who has a really hard time either switching to a
daily lens maybe you hat your the prescription only comes in a monthly
lens and you have a lot of debris that gets stuck on those lenses maybe you
could try the ultrasound cleaner maybe it'll work for you alright everyone
thanks for watching like the video give me a thumbs up subscribe if you're new
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here again this is dr. Joseph Allen here from doctor eye health the channel that helps you
learn about the eyes vision and finding the best vision products keep an eye on
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