Contact lens users around the globe are constantly reminded to keep hygiene at optimum especially with their hands. This is to prevent causing any harm to your eyes. But how do you do so when you are out and about travelling with contact lenses intact in your eyes? Often mishaps like discomfort in your eyes happen and running through water before putting them on again is not a solution. Ever wondered if hand sanitizer is safe for contact lenses?
What are the other methods of keeping hand hygiene in place while being an avid contact lens user? Let’s find out more in this article.
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Alternate Methods of Keeping Your Hands Clean when Travelling with Contact Lenses
Not everyone has the habit of carrying their contact lens case and a bottle of travel size saline solution when out and about. So, what happens when in the midway of your drive, your contact lens starts to dry up? What about if some discomfort like itchiness starts happening all of a sudden and you have no washroom around you?
If you are home and such mishaps happens, it is an automated reflex that you will remove them from your eyes after you have washed your hands, clean it thoroughly with saline and let your eyes rest for a little while before putting them on again.
When travelling, it is often hard to find enough water. However, an eye infection will be the last thing you would ever want. When you find your hands slathered in grime & dirt; it is recommended to first get rid of the slimy dirt you might have got your hands polluted with during jumping hedges, pounds etc. Therefore, we recommend you using whatever is left in your water bottle to meet your needs.
Cleaning with a Concentrated Soap
You may want to have your bag stored with a small bottle of concentrated soap. This would help ease your challenge of having both dirty hands and uncomfortable eyes. That’s only if there is a source of water around you.
Concentrated soaps are most effective in removing stubborn stains, bacteria & mud especially. Place a few drops on a clean dry cloth if any and rub it along with few drops of water. Wipe your face and your fingers; particularly the finger pads through which you will soon be handling your contact lenses. Splash clean your hands using a little quantity of water and pat dry before touching your contact lenses.
Read More: Recommended method of hand washing
Use Hand Sanitizer For Contact Lens
The current social norm these days is to carry a bottle of hand sanitizer with you everywhere you go. Be it with an emerging virus or for your daily hygiene, they come essentially to everyone. You must be wondering, are they really safe for contact lenses?
The answer is YES, hand sanitizer is safe for contact lenses. However, they are more tricky to find their fit.
The alcohol content may burn your eyes off your fingers. Be careful that hand sanitizers do not clean, it just kills bacteria. Aggressively rub your finger pads, followed by dipping the fingers in the water.
If water is available in extreme rations then, dipping your thumb and index finger in no rub contact lens solution will do. But it is safe to say, if all else fails, hand sanitizer can save your day.
Using Wet Wipes
Some people prefer having wet wipes kept in their bags instead of liquid hand sanitizer. While their functions come close to each other, wet wipes can be less effective to hand sanitizer for contact lenses.
Why so? There are alcohol wet wipes and non-alcohol wet wipes. Bacterias are typically wiped off with alcohol-infused wet wipes. Similarly to hand sanitizers, the alcohol content may burn your eyes off your fingers.
But, here’s the advantage of using wet wipes to clean your hands. Instead of throwing away the used contact lens solution, utilize it to disinfect/clean your fingertips by dipping the wet wipes into the solution. After you are done, then the solution would be not used. Dump the solution and refill the chambers again.
Conclusion
Contact lenses have become a necessity for many people regardless of age. Especially when contact lenses are not only convenient but helps correct vision imperfection. Eyeglasses might not be the best option when travelling as they would keep your hands busy fidgeting around.
Thus, contact lenses are the only medium to correct vision as there would be no bigger remorse than being in your dreamland and not seeing it.
However, as said from the beginning of this article, being an avid contact lens user means hygiene has to be kept in place especially hands hygiene. You wouldn’t want to put your pair of eyes into harm right?
As long as you keep your hands clean and keep in mind the do’s and don’ts while being a contact lens user, it should do the trick of keeping them safe.