14 Biggest Blunders to avoid while With Your Contact Lenses

Here’s an unpleasant thought. Dr Reena Garg, assistant professor of ophthalmology at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York City, told Health that using old contact lens solution is “like doing your laundry in dirty water.” In other words, if you store your lenses in a solution, you need to completely discard them. And yes, that means no topping off the old solution with the new solution.

As Medscape explains, adding a little new solution to your old solution creates a weaker version of the contact lens solution. And, as you can imagine, this problem can become cumulative. For example, let’s say you store your lenses on Monday, then top off the old solution on Tuesday. That already sets up inadequate cleaning for your contacts — and topping off the old solution again on Wednesday could further worsen the situation. What it boils down to is that you can’t clean your contacts properly with an old solution, and if you’re not cleaning your contacts properly, you run the risk of developing problems with eye health and vision.

Medscape also cautions against using a solution that’s past its expiration date. Using expired contact lens solutions can lead to infections and either temporary or permanent loss of your eyesight. So, whether the solution is old because it’s already been used or it’s been sitting in your medicine cabinet too long, throw it out.

(7) Don’t wear old contact lenses

Before we dive into this one, it’s important to keep in mind that “old contact lenses” can mean two different things. First, different types of contacts can only be worn for a certain amount of time (via the Michigan Eye Institute). For example, you might only be able to wear a pair of lenses for two weeks before they need to be replaced. Of course, this doesn’t mean you aren’t cleaning and storing your lenses during that time, but no matter how good a job you do at disinfecting your contacts, you still need to discard them on day 14.

Unfortunately, as the Michigan Eye Institute notes, it’s not uncommon for someone to wear their lenses for longer than recommended. While the reasons behind this vary from financial to convenience, the results can be the same: Not replacing your contacts on time might give you an infection in your eye that could be detrimental to your eyesight. Plus, once a lens is past its wear date, it can become more fragile and break apart — something you don’t want to happen while it’s in your eye.

Besides wearing the same pair of lenses for too long, contacts that are several years old (but never used) can also be dangerous to your vision (via Michigan Eye Institute). Even if the lenses have never been taken out of their original package, they’re still sitting in a solution that can expire.

(8) Using the wrong eye drops with contacts