Contact lenses reduce the need to carry glasses everywhere you go. But for some people the sense freedom ends the minute they open the medicine cabinet and are hit with an avalanche of contact lens care products.
If you wear frequent replacement lenses, proper care is essential to preventing eye infection,1 but if you feel overwhelmed by lens care product choices and the bathroom clutter they create, there are alternative lens replacement options that may be a better fit for your lifestyle—and for your home.
Lens Care Shopping
The eye care aisle at your local drugstore likely offers a dizzying array of lens care products. The multi-colored boxes may all look similar, but they’re not. Here’s what you’ll find:
- Saline solutions
- Daily cleaners
- Multipurpose solutions
- Hydrogen peroxide solution
- Protein-removing solutions
Which products are right for you? Unfortunately there is no easy answer and no one-size-fits-all approach. Furthermore, you should never change your products or routine based on a friend’s recommendation. Your product needs depend on the type and material of your contact lens, so always follow your doctor’s specific, personalized instructions.
A Simple “Solution”
Daily disposable contact lenses (also called 1 day lenses) are designed for a single day’s use. You can wear them throughout the day, then throw them into the trash before you go to sleep, which means no more rinsing, rubbing and storing used lenses.
With daily disposable lenses you’ll not only get more space in your medicine cabinet, you’ll also prevent proteins and other substances from building up on the lens surface over time. Even your calendar will look less crowded since you’ll be able to eliminate reminders about when it’s time to replace your lenses. With daily disposables, the routing is always the same. And, if you’re away from home overnight, a spare set of lenses takes up far less room than bottles of solution and other lens care supplies.
More Choices Than Ever Before
When daily disposables were first introduced, they were available in limited materials and could only fit a narrow range of prescriptions. Fortunately, that’s no longer true. Today, daily disposable lenses are manufactured to correct multiple vision problems, including astigmatism and presbyopia. Furthermore, these lenses are also now manufactured using silicone hydrogel, a material that offers high oxygen transmissibility promotes clear, white eyes.
Whether you’re spring-cleaning or hunkering down for a long winter, consider talking to your doctor about whether you can clear the clutter by switching to a daily disposable silicone hydrogel contact lens.
1 Cope JR, Collier SA, Rao MM, Chalmers R, Mitchell GL, Richdale K, et al. Contact Lens Wearer Demographics and Risk Behaviors for Contact Lens-Related Eye Infections--United States, 2014. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2015 Aug 21;64(32):865-70.