Silly Things I’ve Done with My Contacts

Even my contacts think I'm silly.

No, ladies and gentlemen, I have not made these up. I'm guilty of committing these silly deeds with my contacts, unfortunately. So, proceed at your own risk.

Dropped them - I guess this is common for those who are just starting out. I dropped them on the floor on a couple of occasions. At first I thought of throwing them away, being anxious and all about getting them contaminated, but thought cleaning them thoroughly with multipurpose solutions was enough - I found out later that you still have to go through the disinfecting process, which is storing/soaking them overnight or at least six hours after cleansing. By the way, remember to never use tap water to clean your contacts.

Overused - Not for over a month in one go or anything like that; but I had an errand to attend to and had worn the contacts for over 12 hours; and then stored them for just four hours, before using them again [just for reference, as mentioned above, you’re supposed to store them overnight or at least six hours]. I was already using Biofinity, which is an extended-wear contacts, and they were almost at the end of the one-month mark. As I put one on, the contact simply slid down my eye. I had to use fresher ones for that day.

Surprised by cold finger - I guess it was cold. I mean it was cold and everything was cold and I should have expected this right? Yes, but I was still surprised by the coldness of my finger [while trying to apply my contacts] and poked my eye in the process.

Put on the ‘right’ contact in my left eye - I have different prescriptions for each eye; so the 'right' contact should always go to the right eye and the left to the left. Once, I was in such a hurry that I put the contact for my right eye into my left eye, all the while thinking I should get ready in no time, only to discover that both eyes were blurry…

Got a red eye - This was when I was still new and everything was anxiety-inducing. After washing my face, I checked to see if my eyes were OK [I was not wearing contacts at the time] and to my surprise I saw that my right eye was red; lots of blood vessels all over. I was quite shocked. Of course I thought it had to do with the contacts. A lot of things went through my mind, including if I was having an infection or one of those ulcers; and thought, "This is how I’m going to go blind". Yes, funny now; but it just went through my mind for a split second… OK a few. After a few minutes of thinking, walking up and down as I usually do when facing with an anxiety-inducing situation, I remembered that as I was washing my face a few minutes before, I felt an itch and rubbed my eye - the right one, I mean the one on the right - and that must be how I got the red eye. Sure enough, a few hours later the redness subsided.

Got one halfway 'lost' into my eye -  I don’t remember what I was laughing about but I was laughing so hard that I teared up, and, trying to just push the tear off with the back of my hand, I accidentally pushed the lens up and out of its place halfway inside the upper eyelid; and had trouble trying to get the lens centred and laughing at the same time. By the way, I got it back to its place by closing my eye and rubbing it gently and pushing the lens back to the centre.

Trying to ‘remove’ my contact - This is why I can’t have my mind wandering off when I’m doing something. I use the ‘slide down’ method to remove my contacts and I use my index finger to do so. One day, as I placed my index finger at the centre of my eye to slide the contact down, I felt uncomfortable; to be precise my eye felt uncomfortable. I was taken by surprise that I blinked immediately, and wondered why my eye was this sensitive. I tried again still wondering, only to realise that I was supposed to put on my contacts instead of removing them. It’s times like these that I seriously question my intelligence.