If you're new to contact lenses, this video is for you.
I'll show you how to put contacts in with some pro tips to make a fast and easy
let's focus in. Hey, how did he ever? But this is Dr. Neal Guymon, Dr. EyeGuy,
now for this video,
make sure that you've been properly fit for your contact lenses and that you've
had the training at your eye doctor's office.
This will set you up for the best success.
Now let's set up a few things to get you ready, to put the contacts in.
Be sure to verify the prescription on your contacts and which contact goes in
which eye. Now you're gonna wash your hands and dry with a lint-free towel.
You don't want any lint or particles to get on the contacts and then get into
your eye. And now go get in front of a mirror, either upright,
or if you have a mirror on your counter, you can lean over that mirror.
Now this tutorial is for soft contact lenses,
and most of them come in a blister pack like this.
You can now open up that pack and sometimes this might be the most difficult
part of the whole process. Now usually,
I tell my patients to use their dominant hand,
to actually handle the contact lenses.
This is where you're going to use the pad of your pointer finger to get the
contact lens out of the package.
A lot of the time you can actually just dip your finger into the solution and
touch the contact of the contact. We'll just stick to your finger,
or you can scoop it out. Now you want to maneuver the contact and flip it over.
So it sits like a bowl on the finger you're going to use to put the contact in.
This is where you're going to carefully examine the contact lens,
bring it up to eye level.
And there are a few things that you want to check for check for any lint or
particles or rips or tears or chunks out of the contact.
Because if you put that in your eye, yeah, it's not going to feel very good.
And here's a pro tip. If you have contact lenses for astigmatism,
try and see if you can see the indication mark on the lens.
There are these clear little tick marks and every brand has their own design of
these indication marks. But in general, if you see that try and point it down.
When you put the contact lens in this will reduce the amount of time that it
needs to take to adjust, and
reduce the amount of time until you get clear vision. Now,
this is also where you want to make sure the contact lens isn't inside out.
There is a correct way that it goes onto the eye.
The best way to tell is to look at the top edge of the contact lens.
If it's holding a firm bowl shape, then it's correct.
If the edge of the contact lens is flailing out, then it's inside out.
Another easy way to tell is actually the pinch it between your fingers.
If you pinch it and the edge of the contact lens is pointing in,
it's holding its shape, then it's correct.
If you pinch it and the edge of the contact lenses are flailing out,
maybe they're hugging your fingers a little bit, then it's inside out, okay,
here we go. This is where we're actually going to put the contact lens in.
And this is what I usually tell patients.
There are two big enemies to getting contact lenses in.
Number one are your own eyelids. So I'm gonna start with my right eye.
The contact is in my dominant hand.
My non-dominant hand is going to control my top eyelid.
So you want to reach right over your head and reach down and pull that top
eyelid up with your fingers. Your dominant hand,
middle finger is going to pull down on the bottom eyelid.
And here are the biggest tips I can give you to make this go fast.
When you're grabbing the eyelids,
you want to grab as close as possible to the eyelid margin,
right near the eye lashes. If you grab too high or too low,
you won't create enough room to get the contact lens onto the eyeball.
If you grab to the eyelashes and pull, pull pretty hard,
that will create a lot more room to make it way easier to get the contact lens
in. Now here's an even better tip, especially if you have long eyelashes.
When I'm grabbing that top eyelid actually very slow and very gentle,
grab my eyelashes and pin it up against the orbital bone on the top.
This will get the eyelashes out of the way,
and it will really lock your top eyelid open to make it a lot easier to get that
contact lens in. Okay, now that you got your eyelid locked open,
here comes enemy. Number two, your own eyeball. Now,
when you start bringing that contact lens close to your eye,
sometimes your eye is going to flip out a little bit.
Let's start looking up down left, right
Just to get out of the way of the contact lens. Here's my pro tip on this one.
As you're approaching the eye with a contact lens,
you want to try your best to keep looking at yourself in the mirror.
Keep looking straight ahead.
If all of a sudden you're looking at the ceiling or the wall or to the side,
it's going to be really hard to get that contact lens right on the center of the
eye. Okay? Now that we know the enemies to contact lenses, let's do this.
So we have our eyelids pinned open. We're looking at ourselves in the mirror.
We slowly bring the contact lens to our eye. And this is the moment of truth.
Once the contact lens touches her eye, our eye is going to want to react.
It's going to want to close. It's going to want to move the eye,
but stick with those tips. Keep the eyelids open.
Look at yourself in the mirror. We can do this. Now. Here's my tip on this part.
The temptation will be once the contact touches your eye,
you're going to want to go really fast and shove it right into the eye as fast
as possible. But I'm sorry to say,
this will be super difficult and probably won't work. If you go too fast,
the contacts won't have a chance to adhere to the eye and it will a lot of times
fold over and fold over back onto your finger.
This is where we want to have a little bit of patience.
Once the contact touches the eye,
you want to push in just a little bit and give it two to three seconds.
This will give the contact lens a chance to adhere right under the cornea.
The other tip here is once you know, the contact has grabbed onto your eye,
the temptation will be to close your eyes really fast,
but that might push out the contact back out of your eye. If you can,
once the contact is on the eye slowly and gently release your eyelids and
slowly blink,
this will help smooth out the contact onto your eye and help it stay in there.
And there you go, you did it. You got it in the eye.
Now there is a way to put the contact onto the white part of the eye.
If it's too tricky for you to put it right directly center on the cornea,
a lot of people do it this way. Either looking up or looking off to the side,
you can put it on the white part.
And the tip here is once you get it onto the eye,
you want to look towards the contact.
Wherever the contact is that will help your eyelids and your eyeball push it and
center it onto the cornea. Now,
let me give you a few tips to make this easier and even more successful. Hey,
if you're finding these tips helpful so far,
and now you can see the like button with the contacts in there,
hit that like button for me now for new wearer
This might take a little while and it can be super frustrating to learn how to
put the contacts in there and your eye and the contact might dry out as you're
trying to get it in there. So don't be afraid to rewet the contact.
You can dip it back into solution to rejuvenate it,
but also don't be afraid to put an artificial tear in your eye,
to rewet your eye cause your own eyeball could dry out.
Also a tip for the contact lens.
If you notice the inside of the contact is a little dry,
try putting one drop of contact lens solution in the contact.
That solution will help create a better suction when you're putting it on the eye
It'll help that contact adhere and grab onto the eye. Another tip,
if no matter what you do,
the contact lens is staying on your finger and not grabbing onto your eye.
Try drying the tip of your finger and keeping the inside of the contact lens wet
with solution.
This will help the contact lens or Elise from the finger and grab onto your eye.
Okay, now that you've got the contacted one eye,
you just switch over and do the same thing in the other eye.
And I usually just tell people to use the same dominant hand that they used and
just switch over and go through the same motions.
And now that you're a pro getting the contact lenses in,
make sure you check out my video of how to get them out and make sure you
subscribe for more helpful eye tips. I'm Dr. Neal Guymon, Dr.
EyeGuy, stay focused.