eyes and shine! everyone dr alan here and today we are going to show you how to put in a sclera
contact lens these are not the scleral contact lenses the large medical devices we use for people
with certain eye conditions but no these are the cosmetic large colored contact lenses that you'll
often see people wear for halloween costumes for theater for tv shows and movies cool things like
that but putting them in and taking them out can be pretty challenging so in this video we're going
to walk you through how to do that plus we'll show some important safety tips so that you have
the most success with your lenses that's today's video smash that like button and let's take a look
hey what's up everyone dr alan here from the doctor i hell show helping you learn all about the
eyes vision and finding the best vision products and if you're new here to the channel definitely
consider hitting that subscribe button down below now again today we're going to be breaking down
how to put in sclera contact lenses these are often pretty popular around this time of year
around halloween in october for halloween costumes as well as people wearing them for haunted houses
if you dress up as cosplay uh different things like that they can look wicked awesome and
probably the most popular are the black sclera contacts these make your eyes kind of look like
a demon from supernatural or something like that sam and dean i love you guys but again to put them
in and take them out because they're so large they can be pretty challenging so i'm gonna break down
some tips for you and walk you through the process first of all if you've never worn contacts before
this is not the best place to learn how to wear contacts in the first place i think it is best
to have a full fitting course with your local eye care professional that way you have somebody who
can walk you through and troubleshoot any issues you may be having and if you happen
to poke your eye or scratch your eye you'll be there with a professional who can help you out
step number one for putting sclera contact lenses in as with all contact lenses make sure you wash
your hands properly you don't want to be putting dirty fingers into your eyes and risk getting an
infection it is also best to dry your hands with a lint-free cloth that way you don't get any
pieces of lint onto the contact lenses step number two is to inspect your contact lens make sure that
it is not expired make sure that there's no chips or damages to the lens that it hasn't dried out
because yeah you don't want to be putting a damaged or expired lens into your eye
these are your eyes step number three is to rinse off your sclera contact lens with some form of a
multi-purpose disinfectant soft contact lens solution i recommend doing this just so that
you can rinse off any sort of debris make sure it's perfectly clean this type of solution will
make it a little bit more comfortable and even if they're straight brand new contact lenses straight
out of the vial that saline buffer solution that comes in there typically is not the exact
salt content as your tears so just rinsing it all off getting a new fresh coat of solution on there
typically just in my experience makes them more comfortable now before we put them in just a pro
tip that will make it a lot easier is to have some form of a handheld mirror nearby because
then you'll be able to look straight down into the mirror you can let gravity hold the contact lens
under your fingers rather than trying to somehow hold on to it and put them in sitting upright that
just makes it way too difficult so instead grab a handheld mirror of some kind i'm going to be using
this cool creepy thing just because tis the season now hold the contact lens with your fingers either
with two fingers or using a little tripod stand with three fingers you're going to first stare at
the contact lens then stare down toward your body and you're going to be using your non-dominant
hand to lift your upper eyelid and then you're going to tuck the large sclera contact lens under
that top eyelid then you're going to pause and then look upward then using your non-dominant
hand switch to the lower eyelid pull that down and then push the remaining of the contact lens
onto the eye all right now after you're done wearing them and looking all cool and fancy now
we have to take them out so this is how to take out sclera contacts and this is honestly one of
the most probably more important to learning how to put them in because if you have a problem with
them they're painful your eyes are feeling red irritated anything at all you gotta take them out
so this is how you do it first again make sure you wash your hands completely and properly but
i can't really stress keeping your fingers as dry as possible that is really important for removing
all contact lenses the drier your fingers are the easier it is to grip the contact and get it out of
the eye otherwise you just make your fingers into a little kissing shape like this if you haven't
seen my other video tutorial on how to just remove regular contact lenses you can reference
that video as well for how to remove these ones but because they're a little bit bigger you do
have to have a little bit more of a grip on them just to fully get them out so i do recommend just
grabbing your upper eyelid your lower eyelid and then using your little pinchers look up slightly
and grab and pull and there you go and we're gonna do the same thing on the opposite side i'm gonna
grab the upper eyelid then the lower eyelid with my middle finger using both the kissing motion
and up and off it comes look at that now if you don't remove them on your first try that's okay
just take a brief breath don't panic dry our fingers off again and try and try again if you
do struggle to get them out you just can't seem to get them out no matter what make sure to call
your local eye care professional and get over to their clinic so that they can help you remove them
okay now that we've removed the sclera contacts now we need to go over how to
store them properly and take care of them because we don't want them to shrivel up and become just
nasty hard shelled pieces of plastic but before we go over that i do want to mention some important
safety tips so that you have the most success with these type of lenses the first and biggest
tip is to be responsible and understand the risk you take when wearing contact lenses especially
these type of contacts the newest contact lenses to the market have been engineered for decades
trying to make them safe and comfortable for your eyes however these contact lenses sclera
contact lenses and most colored contacts on the market are made of really old material
from like the 1960s and 70s and they don't have very good oxygen transmissibility to the surface
of the eye that increases your risk of getting things like corneal ulcers edema or swelling
this can lead to infection and eventually there's a scarring and permanent vision loss to the eye
for this reason tip number two is to consult with your local eye doctor before getting these type of
lenses ask your doctor if they can prescribe them for you if they can order them for you
and to give you any specialized tips about you and your eye health including how long they recommend
you even wear these type of lenses again because they reduce the amount of oxygen getting to the
surface of your eye it's usually not recommended to wear them very long i personally if i wear
these lenses to like a costume party or something like that i usually only wear them for maybe two
to three hours at very most usually enough to show up to the party take a few cool photos with people
and then i bring my contact lens case so that i can remove them and put go back to my normal
contacts which are the newer lenses which are much healthier for the eye and my last tip is
under all circumstances do not sleep in these lenses and if you ever have pain redness change
in your vision take them out immediately and then give your eye doctor a call again you've only
got two eyes please take care of them okay now that we've gotten that important safety message
out of the way let's go over just a few tips on how to properly store these lenses so that again
they don't dry out and just become nasty the first thing you probably notice is that these
scleral lenses don't really fit well into a normal contact lens case you can kind of force them in
there but they bunch up and it's hard to put the top on so i personally just don't like to use that
at all i like to use the vial that it originally came in i empty out the vial i clean it out with
multi-purpose solution i put the lens in and then fill the vial back up with multi-purpose solution
now you may notice that with these type of lenses they usually have an expiration date of around
one year yeah that's one here but remember that these lenses were designed back in the 60s and 70s
and probably that should be updated i honestly only use them for about a few weeks at a time
especially if i'm going to a convention doing a cosplay thing or it's around halloween and i'm
going to multiple parties and wearing them for a specific costume or something like that after
that like two three week span of using them once a week or something like that they end up getting
tossed out i will not use them the next year i'll end up buying new ones even though again they are
again 12 months for these contact lenses before they expire they're gonna sit in that solution and
if you leave forget about it the solution's gonna dry out the lenses are gonna dry out
it's best just to plan to buy new ones every year if for some reason you do forget about them and
they dry out i do not recommend that you try to re-wet them with solution it really doesn't work
it's best to again just don't even bother trying just buy new ones hey i hope you found this video
helpful and entertaining if you enjoyed the video definitely smash that like button and leave a
comment below of which one of these contact lenses were your favorite have you had any of these
contact lenses yourself have you had any success with them or maybe bad experiences with them i'd
love to hear about it anyways if you haven't seen my other videos on colored contact lenses if you
want to check those out you can click or tap the screen up over here to the side or if you'd like
to see another cool video from dr eye health click or tap the screen down over here again thanks for
watching dr alan here from the doctor eye health show keep an eye on it and we'll talk to you soon