so in this video we show how to fix the three key issues that I know in my
experience almost everybody who struggles to get their lenses in isn't
getting right. Hi I'm Martin Oguzie and this is Martin's eye tips, thank you for
joining me. I'm a uk-based optometrist I've been in practice now for about
twenty years on this channel we're all about helping you to see better, see more
comfortably and be less anxious about your eyes. So today's video is about
fixing these three key issues that everybody who's struggling with contact
lenses for the first time is almost certainly getting wrong... so let's get
going and before we do that I just want to remind you that you can check the
description box below for some of my key resources if you're new to contact
lenses. So I want to start today with my peace of mind point for all you new
contact lens wearers out there... and that's just to remind you that although
right now you might be struggling with getting your lenses in and out it may
seem like you're never gonna be able to do it and you may even be thinking about
giving up, I just want to remind you that contact lenses in many ways is a bit
like riding a bike. So when you start out it can be very difficult you're
definitely gonna struggle in many ways but down the line when you're
able to do it and do it successfully you develop your own style and your own way
of getting the lenses in and out safely but you also tend to look back to the
early days and wonder why you struggled in the first place
so it's definitely worth of persevering and sticking with it, and
before you know it you'll be able to get your lenses in really quickly so
you can get off to work or doing the things that you need to do in the day
and also being able to get your lenses out very quickly and very efficiently as
well. (1) I think the number one issue that I find that new contact lens wearers have
with getting their lenses in arises from the fact that they're not creating
enough room for the contact lenses it's important to realize that soft lenses
are quite large in size and extend about a millimeter over the colored part of
your eye over the the iris so they are pretty large lenses so if you're not
creating enough room for the lens you're gonna struggle now one of the key ways
to know that you're struggling with not creating enough room for the lens is
that if you're having to stop and start getting the lenses in several times and
every time you're finding that when you look back onto your finger you can see
that the lens has flipped backwards on and wrapping
back onto your fingers then that's an indication that is hitting something and
it's usually hitting the eyelash so when this happens you know that you're really
struggling with room for the lens to get in so you need to approach things
differently and make sure you're creating enough space enough room for
that contact lens to get in so the key fix for this is to make sure
that you take note first of all how you've been taught to get the lenses in
and then often what I find is that to where people struggle is that they're
not grabbing their eyelashes and getting their eyelashes out the way now when you
create room for the lens and you're usually advised to hold your top eyelid
and your bottom eyelid and hold them out the way what a lot of people do is use a
lot of force and really drag their eyelids and at the same time they're
also neglecting to cover up the eyelashes and get the eyelashes out the
way the eyelashes tend to be what caused the problem and what tends to hit your
lenses and causes them to flip back onto your fingers so rather than grabbing
your lids and yanking them as hard as possible what I advise people to do is
just gently grab your lashes get your fingers of your lashes and make sure
you've got your lashes out of the way and then gently open your eyes allow
your eyes to relax and just use a very little force to help your eyelids to
open wide and when you do that you'll find you be more relaxed and most
importantly you've got your lashes out the way so they're not going to be an
obstruction to get in that large contact lens in so this of course could take a
little bit of practice so I'd recommend that you do this without the lens on
your finger and just concentrate really are not getting the lashes out the way
and rather than using lots of force just relax your eyes and allow your fingers
to help your eyelids to open gently and that way you'll find that you'll be able
to just comfortably get enough room for the lens so that you can get that in
first time every single time. (2) Now the second issue that causes people to
struggle to get their lenses in arises from the fact that they failed to use
their mirror properly in the early days when you're
starting out with your lenses it's really important that you use a mirror
and use the mirror effectively because this helps you to build build a visual
memory of how to get your lenses in and then before you know it you won't need a
mirror anymore because you've almost developed this muscle memory or this
visual memory that allows you to kind of visualize what's happening so you
without you in the mirror to be able to fix the
position of the lens to get the lens centered correctly on your right so
here's my tip to use in the mirror properly and effectively now when you're
using the mirror it's important to get as close as possible a lot of people
tend to stay quite far back and this is a problem because you don't see where
the edges of the lens into your eye and how close they are to the top and the
bottom lid so if you can get as close as you possibly can to the mirror and that
way you can really see a clearer profile of the edges of the lens and that way
you can guide the lens in and to navigate your top lid and your bottom
lid without it hitting or colliding on any of the edges so an important method
that we teach to do this effectively is to position the contact lens in front of
your eye first of all make sure that it's nice and straight and centered then
without moving your hand or without moving your fingers if the position of
the lens exactly as it is in a straight ahead position but turn your head so
that you can still see everything that's going on in the mirror without your
fingers getting in your way and then get as close as you can to the mirror that
way you'll be able to see all the edges of the lenses as clearly as possible and
once you've mastered this it makes it so much easier for you to mate to see
exactly what's going on with the contact lens so instead of guessing what's
happening you're able to see all the edges and where they where they meet on
the eye and you're able to navigate the lens into position and again this helps
you to build up a very good visual memory of what's going on and before you
know it you'll be able to do this process without needing a mirror. (3) And a
third issue that leads to people struggling to get the lenses in is poor
handling of the contact lens and when I say poor handling what I mean is how
people pick the lenses up how they move them around from finger to finger and
also how they sit position the lens on their index finger in order to get it
onto the eye so in order to fix this issue we need to be able to pick up the
lenses or handle lenses in a way that makes it less frustrating for us to wait
to do that and a key way that I teach people to be able to do this is first of
all to use your thumb and your index finger and to scoop the contact lens up
from the bottom of the contact lens once you have the contact lens gently pinched
against itself then you can position it anywhere you want to on your finger and
the best position to position the contact lens is right on the tip of the
index finger just about here if you have the lens positioned anywhere
else so perhaps a bit further down your finger like this or in any other
position it's gonna lead to you having problems with lining up the contact
lenses correctly so instead of the contact lens sitting nicely on your
fingers and position ready to come parallel on to the eye it may be
slightly off and then this may lead to you angling your fingers in a way that
causes problems with you getting the lenses in accurately so it's important
it's really critical that you position the lens in a way so that it is parallel
onto the eye and it doesn't come on to your eye and at an angle if this happens
then you may find you have problems with for example the lens folding on itself
as you try to insert it in on your eye but you may just find that the lens is
coming in too low or too high onto the eye those are the three key fixes that
you need to make to make you know to get your contact lenses in first time every
time so they are very simple and but you know when you're starting out with
contact lenses there's often so many different things to remember and it's
often an easy to neglect any one of these steps and in doing that that can
easily cause problems with you getting your lenses in and cause people to get
frustrated and even cause people to want to give up on trying content in this so
just to summarize o3 fixes really quickly its first of all to get your
lashes out the way it's to get as close as possible to the mirror and then it's
to handle and position your contact lenses as precisely as possible. Now for
my Question for you today... When it comes to getting your contact lenses in, what's
your biggest frustration? So leave a message for me in the comment section
below and I look forward to reading those messages and responding to freedom
as well now if you're watching this video and you're thinking about giving
up on contact lenses all you're wondering whether you should start
contact lenses for the first time then check out the video just over here on
seven good reasons why contact lenses might be a good idea. Now I hope to see you
in the next video, in the meantime please think about subscribing to the channel,
if you do, please hit that notification bell as well, that way you get reminding every
time I release a new video. So until the next video
take care