Getting Started with Contact Lenses: Hygiene, Handling and Good Habits

Contact lenses offer a rare kind of freedom, seeing clearly with nothing on your nose. But they have to be earned. Here are the habits that let you start well, without ever putting your eyes at risk.

Switching to lenses is often a small revolution: an open gaze, full peripheral vision, any pair of sunglasses suddenly within reach. Yet a lens is still a medical device resting on a fragile surface, the cornea. The good news is that everything comes down to a few simple gestures, repeated every day. Once they become automatic, you forget they are there.

What contact lenses really are

A contact lens is a thin, transparent disc that follows the curve of the eye and corrects your vision, just like a spectacle lens, but sitting right against the cornea. There are soft lenses, the most common and the most comfortable day to day, and rigid lenses, kept for certain precise corrections. On the replacement side, three families exist. Dailies, thrown away each evening, are ideal for beginners and sensitive eyes: no maintenance, a fresh lens every morning. Fortnightly and monthly lenses are more economical, but they demand rigorous care. For a first step, the daily remains the safest route.

Hygiene, the number one rule

Almost every lens-related problem comes from a lapse in hygiene. The founding reflex fits in one line: clean hands, always. Wash them with soap, rinse, and dry with a lint-free towel before touching a lens. If you wear reusable lenses, two objects become your allies. The multipurpose solution, which cleans, rinses and stores, is never topped up; it is fully renewed each time. And the case, too often forgotten: empty it, rinse it with solution, let it air-dry, and replace it every month. A neglected case is a nest for bacteria.

Putting them in and taking them out, calmly

The first days feel daunting, and that is normal. Method calms things down. To insert a lens: check it is the right way round, a cup rather than a saucer, place it on the tip of your index finger, pull the lower lid down, look up, then set the lens on the white of the eye and blink gently. To remove it: clean hands again, look up, slide the lens down onto the white of the eye with the pad of your finger, then pinch it softly between thumb and index. No nails, all gentleness. Within a few days, this little routine becomes second nature.

The mistakes that harm your eyes

Three habits come up again and again, and all of them are fixable. Sleeping in your lenses, first, unless they are specifically designed for it: overnight wear starves the cornea of oxygen and multiplies the risk of infection. Overrunning the wearing time, next: a monthly lens kept for six weeks is not a bargain, it is a risk. And contact with water, last, which deserves its own chapter under the tropics.

Lenses and life in Bali

The island's climate adds its own rules. Water, first: showers, pools, rice paddies, the ocean, none is sterile, and some carry a micro-organism, acanthamoeba, behind serious corneal infections. The rule is simple, take your lenses out before you swim, and reach instead for a good pair of prescription sunglasses at the beach. Heat and humidity also dry the surface of the eye, especially on a scooter or under air conditioning. Keep artificial tears within reach, and favour dailies on dusty or windy days. Your comfort will follow.

When to see someone

A red eye, pain, sudden sensitivity to light or blurred vision are not up for negotiation: take the lens out and seek advice. These signals are rare when your habits are sound, but they always deserve a quick response. In a Maison Mata store, a guided first fitting and a little tailored advice are usually all it takes to start with confidence.

A lens worn well disappears, and that is exactly the point.