Contact lenses are becoming an increasing popular means of vision correction. Even those who are happy to wear glasses find that there are occasions when they would rather be able to wear contact lenses.
There are a number of Contact Lens Health and Lifestyle questionnaires that can give you a pretty good idea of your likely success at wearing lenses. Your responses are scored on a number of factors such as the environment in which you live, your health status and the general sensitivity of your eyes.
As an optometrist with over 20 years experience in fitting contact lenses I would like discuss some issues that don’t come up in Contact Lens Health and Lifestyle questionnaires, but which are very important for successful lens wear.
How squeamish are you about touching your eye?
There are some perfectly good candidates for contact lenses who could be very successful wearers but they just clamp their eyelids shut as a lenses approaches. Usually men have more problems than women because they are not used to applying eye make up. I have had huge sportsmen faint and slump to the floor as I have delicately tried to prise the lids open to get a lens in.
The way to desensitise yourself is to practice touching the white part of your eye with a freshly washed finger.
How good are you with small fiddly things?
Inserting and removing contact lenses requires both a knack and a reasonable amount of manual dexterity. Now you don’t have to be a concert pianist or a brain surgeon but you do need to have some feeling and flexibility in the fingers. If your hands are steady enough to thread a needle and do up small buttons you probably have what it takes.
How bad are your eyes when you take your glasses off?
In order to put contact lenses in you will need to take your glasses off. There comes a tricky moment when you need to see to put the lens but you haven’t got any eye correction. If you are shortsighted then you can often just get closer to the mirror to see what you are doing. If you are longsighted then it can often just be one big blur and then you have to be good at “feeling” your way around.
How narrow are your eyes?
If you have particularly deep set or narrow eyes then it can be a bit of a mission to insert and remove lenses. There are techniques you can use to overcome narrow eyes but it is a little tricker.
Are you a lazy eye blinker?
Many potential contact lenses wearers don’t blink often enough or completely enough. This often seems to come from computer use. Typically when looking at a computer screen we blink less and often half flutter the lids closed rather than doing a proper closed eye blink.
If you have ever experienced dry burning irritated eyes when using a computer, this may be a sign that you are not blinking properly.
There are three ways to improve your blinking:
o Forced blinks: On the hour, every hour do 10 forced blinks. If you have a digital watch you can set the timer to beep on the hour as a reminder. This works in about 15% of people.
o Momentary blackness. On your schedule do 4 blinks, where you are aware of a moment of blackness. Many with dry eye just flutter their lids only half closed when they blink. By seeing a moment of complete blackness you will be training your lids to close completely.
o Finger twitch. Rest your index finger on the outside edge of your eyes while watching TV and be aware of the muscles under the skin near your eyelids twitching your fingers as you blink. This technique helps to raise awareness of blinking.
If you have passed this self evaluation and also the Contact Lens Health and Lifestyle questionnaire then you are probably a good candidate for lens wear.