In order to help your contacts and glasses work their best for you, it’s important to ensure that you’re taking care of your eye hygiene. This is something that contact lens wearers tend to worry about more than people who wear glasses, due to the fact that contacts go directly on your eyes. However, regardless of whether you wear contacts, glasses, or don’t need either, being mindful of your eye hygiene is essential.
While some parts of eye hygiene may be obvious, others aren’t as clear-cut. Here are some tips to help you improve your eye hygiene to help your eyes function their best. Let’s get into it.
#1. Don’t Sleep In Your Contact Lenses
This is something that your eye doctor or optician should have told you, but perhaps they didn’t or perhaps you forgot or perhaps you think it’s not that big of a deal. You may roll your eyes and think that since you wear your contacts all day, what does it matter if you sleep in them?
It’s important to ensure that you do take out your contacts at night, unless you have been prescribed specific contact lenses that are meant to be slept in – something you would be very well aware of if you have these. The reason why you shouldn’t sleep in your contacts is because it makes you 8x more likely to get an eye infection.
#2. Keep Your Contacts And/Or Glasses Clean
It can be super easy to just wipe your smudgy glasses with the hem of your T-shirt or to reuse old contact lens solution. Tempting though it may be to take the easy way, it’s important for your eye hygiene for you to ensure that you’re properly cleaning your glasses and/or contact lenses. We say and/or because many people like to alternate between glasses and contacts, while others prefer to stick just to glasses or just to contact lenses.
Properly cleaning your glasses consists of:
- Washing and drying your hands before removing your glasses
- Rinsing your glasses with water
- Applying a cleaning solution
- Rinsing said cleaning solution off
- Wiping them off with a microfiber cloth
How often you should clean your glasses depends on your lifestyle and personal hygiene. It’s typically recommended that you give your glasses a light cleaning once a day and then clean the frames once a week. It’s important to do this because not only can your lenses get annoyingly blurry and dirty, dangerous bacteria can grow on your glasses which can cause infections.
You’ll also want to store your glasses in their case when you’re not using them. If your glasses are difficult to clean, you can take them to a professional.
Properly cleaning your contacts consists of:
- Washing your hands first
- Using fresh contact lens solution every time
- Rub and rinse your contacts with cleaning solution
- Store your contacts in their case
- Rinse your contact lens case with fresh solution each day
- Replacing your contact lens case every 3 months
- Only using contact lens solution, not water or saliva or what have you
- Only using contact lens solution from its original bottle, as transferring it to a travel container could compromise the sterility
If you have dailies (contacts that you replace every day), then you don’t need to worry about this as much. However, if you have contacts that are replaced every month or so, you must be mindful of how you’re cleaning them to keep your eyes safe and healthy.
#3. Wear Eye Protection As Needed
This includes everything from safety glasses to sunglasses. Many eye injuries can be prevented through the use of proper eye protection. While it may seem like common sense to wear eye protection during sports or while mowing the lawn, it’s important to wear sunglasses on a regular basis too, as UV rays can lead to macular degeneration, cataracts, and skin cancer in and around your eyes.
If you’re a glasses wearer, you can get prescription sunglasses, so that you don’t have to worry about the awkwardness of trying to wear regular sunglasses over your normal glasses. Prescription sunglasses come in many different brands and styles, so you can rest assured that just because they’re prescription doesn’t mean that you have to sacrifice your personal style.
Need Help With Eye Hygiene?
These are just 3 helpful tips to help you maintain good eye hygiene. If you would like to learn more about properly taking care of your contacts or glasses or if you’re interested in prescription sunglasses or prescription safety glasses, contact Wolcott Optical today. We carry a wide range of frames and brands to best suit your needs.