Do you wear contact lenses – are you truly revolting or a strictly hygiene only? Share with Specsavers – you could win £250 NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

The team at Specsavers would love to all about your habits (good or bad) with your contact lenses.

We all know hygiene and eyes is very important – so do you tend to toe the line and follow instructions to the letter? Or are you a bit {ahem} lax in that department? How about when you were younger – or had different lenses? How do you dispose of disposable lenses? Does your DP wear them and leave them lying around when they should be in the bin?

Specsavers say "Here at Specsavers we like to make is easy for contact lens wearers - wearing contact lenses gives you freedom and convenience. And at Specsavers, when you buy contact lenses you get more than just the lenses. Our all-inclusive package not only gives you some fantastic benefits but is also an easy way to pay for your lenses. We'll give you a pair of glasses from our £45 range or designer frames from just £35, full aftercare, future sight tests as recommended by your optician and we'll deliver your lenses and solutions, at no extra cost."

Share your habits – good and bad - and everyone who does will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £250 voucher from here

Please note Specsavers may use your comments - anon of course - on their pages on MN, on their social media or possibly elsewhere - please only post if you're happy with this.

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

I wear dailies now.
I have worn monthlies and colours.
The coloured prescription monthlies are so hard and UN comfy.

When I wore monthlies I very rarely rubbed and rinised. Just chucked the lenses in fresh solution. I always left my case to air dry when wearing the lenses. I rubbed the lenses when I could see the shine from my eyeshadow on them.

I do swim in lenses but only dailes and Chuck them as soon as I get out of the pool.

I've slept in lenses far too many times to count. I've been that pissed that I've slept in spanx and/or shoes so it's probably safer that I don't go digging in my eye when that drunk.
The morning after the first thing is lenses out and lots of comfort drops in.

I always wash hands putting lenses in but not all the time taking out.
I'm not perfect with hygiene but a lot better than some here.

My auntie puts her hard lenses in her mouth to get dust off them. It's minging!

Been wearing monthly disposable lenses for about 6-7 years now. Tried the constant wear monthly ones about 1 year in but it felt like I was wearing a rubber glove!!

Just got a new pair of glasses as part of my Lensmail contract and some weeks hardly wear my lenses; other weeks the glasses don't see the light of day.

I suffer with stress induced migraines and find that bright sunny days lower the amount of stress required to set one off. Wearing lenses means I can chuck on any old pair of sunglasses and not worry about the prospect of an aura so much

Hygienically, I think I am ok. Only ever put lenses in after a shower, and take them out after my last wee before teeth brushed & bed. Always put them in cleaning solution and new lens day is first of the month or first working day thereof.

I use monthly disposable. I'd love to use daily but I have weird shaped eyes, and they'd cost me a small fortune. I wear my contacts 3 or 4 days a week, and my glasses the rest, as I find my eyes get quite dry and tired otherwise. I always wash my hands before applying and removing, I've read too many horror stories to rake a risk with my eye sight. I never towel dry my hands before applying the contacts as towel fluff can be absolutely agonising if caught between the contact lens and your eye! Other than that, I've not had any trouble with my contacts and wouldn't be without them.

I was always scared of the idea of sticking anything in my eyes, until a friend - who was much more faint-hearted than me - began using contact lenses with enviable ease. I decided if someone like her can use them, then so can I! I tentatively booked in a trial session and was amazed by how ok it felt.

Initially I used daily disposables, and whilst it suited me to forgo the cleaning routine, it was no good after having a baby because I needed to cat-nap when the newborn did.

Luckily my optician suggested a trial of monthly lenses, which don't have to be taken out at all until the 30 days expire. It was suggested to me that I would benefit from cleaning and storing them overnight to avoid dry eye, with all the sleeplessness and hormones after giving birth. My DC is nearly 2 now and I still remove every night because I want to give my eyes a rest from the contacts. I didn't o back to dailies because I found the monthly lenses much softer and more moist, and so more comfortable.

For me, the perfect contact lens would be daily disposable but comfortable and possible to have a daily catnap in them, without risking any eye dryness or damage.

I am horrified by stories of people 'cleaning' lenses using tap water or saliva. But equally, I never really know what to do if I drop a contact lens on the sink or my arm - am I allowed to irrigate with saline and use it or do I have to clean it as leave it soaking for 6 hours? Clear, written instructions would be helpful and might help reduce the malpractice witnessed on here!

I am more meticulous with my hand washing after reading this thread. It's easy to think that because I've been indoors and always wash hands after using the toilet, that my hands are reasonably clean when I take my contacts out at night, especially as I painstakingly rub them gently in cleaning solution for the 20 seconds instructed on the solution bottle. No more though, I always wash hands just before touching my eyes after reading all of this!

I wear daily disposables now, but not very often, I used to wear my monthlys for too long each day and ended up with very dry eyes.....

I wear contacts. I can leave them in for the whole month (sleep in them) but I take them out every two days as don't want my eyes to become lazy.

As its my eyes I am very careful with washing my hands, only using solution of them etc.

Absolutely hate when I get the occasional rip......plus is hurts like crazy...arghhhhhh

My eyes are too important for me not to look after my lenses really well. The only thing that's a bit gross is putting them in my mouth if I have to take them out for a few minutes.

daily disposables here too and i am stickler for hand hygiene

I wear monthly disposables. I often forget to change them after a month though. I do wash my hands before putting them in/out but not before fiddling with them if my eyes feel dry.

I love contacts, they changed my life when I was a miserable teenager with frizzy hair, glasses and a brace.

I prefer to wear glasses as touching my eyes gives me the heebie jeebies, having recently had an infection in both eyes which left me unable to see clearly for just over a fortnight i know how important it is to look after your eyes and to make sure your hands are clean if you touch them

no i don't use contacts

I don't as hubby put me off years ago with his obsessive cleaning rituals, and then complaints of fluff from the towel behind the lens. Yuk!

I tried wearing contact lenses. But i have so many probelms with my eyes (Blepharitis/Occular Rosacea/Dry eyes) i gave up in the end and stuck to glasses.

I have a strict hygiene regimen in place already for the above issues and didn't want to add to it.

I also have a bit of a phobia in regards to touching my eyes.

Glasses in my experience are easier.

I have oxygen permeables. At night, I'm painstaking. I rub them carefully with a cleaner, rinse with saline, and then soak in hydrogen peroxide solution. I also de-protein.

In the day I take them out and suck them.

Before I discovered this Boots solution called something like advanced gas permeable system (although I soak them in a different Boots one) my lenses had started to get a greasy film on them that nothing in the world, not hours or days of de-proteining, could shift. I thought I'd have to give up lenses for good, but this Boots thing has changed my life. I even washed them in fairy liquid to try to get the grease out, and obviously bought new lenses etc.

I love my lenses, I've worn them since I was 12.

SacreBleu: I just read all the way through the thread and found that you're having smeary problems too so I'm going to tell you the exact type it is:

All from Boots:

Advanced Cleaning Solution/Advanced Conditioning Solution

they come separately or as a pack. But I only use these for cleaning and wetting. For soaking I use the Boots Deep Cleaning solution, which is preservative free and turns from hydrogen peroxide to saline over night. The one that comes with a barrel shaped case with an aluminium disc in the bottom.

I can get on with disposable for a day or two but when my hayfever starts, soft lenses flip upside down, fold, or rise up to the top of my eyeball and stick there. I wore non-disposable soft when I started wearing contacts and my life was always spent digging around at the top of my eyelid trying to find them.

Hope this helps, I went through years of smeary lenses and it had got to the point where I literally couldn't see walking down the road, it was like walking through thick fog.

I wear glasses as there are not enough hours in the day for me to keep my eye open to put a contact lense in, I've tried many times ... I'm such a wuss!

I wear glasses as there are not enough hours in the day for me to keep my eye open to put a contact lense in, I've tried many times ... I'm such a wuss!

I wear them but they iritate my eyes , so I only wear them for going out. i am very careful with my hygiene as I am prone to eye infections,

When I was younger, I wore monthlies. I was pretty good at taking care of them. In those days you had to do some de-protein thing and I had 2 different solutions, one was the peroxide one and then the neutraliser so it was a complete faff, but I did clean the daily. The only thing I did 'wrong' was to wear them for much longer than I should .

I have daily disposables now, although I wear glasses most often. With the dailies I just check them afterwards which is fab. Chuck em down the plughole.

Chuck them, not check them. What would I be checking them for??

I have put an un-neutralised lens in my eye several times. OUCH!

I wear monthlies. I pop them out eyes and straight into the solution which I tip out and top up each night.

I sometimes get 5 weeks out of my "monthlies".

I wear them more days per week and for longer per day than I should (like all the time).

I use disposeable daily lenses, most of the time I have no trouble although occasionally I have to take the lens back out and clean it with water as they may be a slight bit of dirt or fabric on it that can irriate. I never sleep with them in at night although I have fallen asleep in the day, like a long car journey although it doesn't seem to cause a problem. I much prefer dailes to monthlies like I used to have as there is no messing about cleaning them and putting them away plus no errors like the time I forgot to put both solutions in to wash them, only the acid one and put it in my eye! I screamed for England and was in agony for about 2 days! never again!

I wear daily disposables and there isn't much hygiene to worry about - just washing my hands. Easy

Please take great care with hygiene when wearing lenses. I wore them when I was a teenager and cut corners, badly, so ended up with infiltrates in my eyes meaning I now shouldn't wear them at all or only for very short periods of time. You only get one set of eyes, take care of them.

I am currently wearing my first pair of glasses...I am 2 days in.. OK but I would like to try contact lenses at some stage.