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 use daily disposables. I do wash my hands before I put them in. I am sometimes naughty if i'm out in the day and I have a problem with one I will rinse it with bottled water and put it back in which I know I'm not supposed to do. I put them in the bin when I take them out, I don't usually wash my hands before I do this.

I wear contact lenses for special occasions, so I buy the disposables. I love that they make me look to totally different compared to my glasses, almost like my alter ego comes out!
Strictly hygiene here, I always wash my hands before putting them in and taking them out. No matter how drunk I get I always do it, luckily I've never passed out in them!

DH has daily disposables.
No idea how he puts them in - I'm very squeamish about eyes, and can't watch. When he takes them out, they usually get left on the side of the sink.

He has a pair of glasses in the car, as on occasion, they have slipped when he has been out, and needed glasses to drive home safely.

I've got the all day all night lenses. I'm not good with hygiene with them I must say! I find they get a little dry at times so I've always got my finger in my eye moving them around. I swim in them when I shouldn't and often forget after 30 days to bin them. That said I do always wash my hands before putting them in. I love the all day all night! It's like having normal vision again! Horray x

Monthly disposables here. Went into them at specsavers recommendation 15 years ago after 20 years of gas permeables. Always touch and go whether I'll be able to continue because my prescription is very high.

I'm pretty good with hygiene, though I have to use peroxide solutions because my eyes get very dry otherwise. I'm rubbish at not wearing them though. My vision just isn't as good in glasses so I wear them for much longer than I should do.

I am a monthly disposable user too, sometimes they are used a bit longer than the month as i forget. I am had a few problems over the years with congutavitas i think mostly from not washing off my mascara well enough and over extended use. I am finding now as i am getting older the prescription is not strong enough, i will need to get glasses again for a change but will use lenses too. I always wash my hands and put in clean solution each night. I am actually planning on going to a very good guy i heaard about here in Galway Specsavers.

I might be the most short sighted slattern on here. I started saving up my spare monthly disposables as they always lasted me longer than a month or so. Anyway I ended up with a massive stash which was ideal as I had to cancel my monthly order when I was budget cutting while on maternity leave. DS is five, and I still have a couple of pairs in their use by date... Guess it's finally time I headed to the opticians!

I'm pretty strict with my eye hygiene, but have to be really careful with what solutions I use. Peroxide only for me or my lenses don't get clean!

I always wash my hands before handling and swill my cases out with saline.

I wish I could wear dailies.... Darn that astigmatism

I wear gas permeables and have done for over 30 years.

I clean them everynight and put them in fresh solution. Every so often I clean the case in cooled, boiled water. I always wash my hands before inserting or removing lenses.

I would love to change to (monthly?) disposables as I am now finding that with the menopause my eyes are much more sensitive and I can't wear my lenses for so long or even every day. I did try disposables a few years ago but, despite all those years of inserting and removing hard lenses, I just could not remove the larger soft lenses. I spent ages in the opticians trying to do it and they were very patient, but in the end I just had to give up and go back to my gas permeables. I would love to try again one day.

I'm very strict about contact lens hygiene. I have a high prescription and wear gas permeable lenses, and have fine so for about 20 years.

I wash hands, clean and put in fresh solution. I put my case in boiled water frequently. Even when I come in from a night out slightly tipsy, the one thing I always manage to do is clean my lenses!

I wear Daily disposables, have done since i was 16, so for 17 years.
I wear my glasses a few days a week, and obviously when i remove my lenses.

I have used monthlies in the past (when i was a student) and was terrible for staying at a friends and leaving them in all night... cue gooey stuck together eyes!
I much prefer the convenience of dailies, although i flick them out of my eye the wrong way and sometimes they end up above my eyelid which is pretty sore and annoying! I also like to throw them at my partner as he claims it is 'disgusting!'
My 4 year old loves to watch me 'put in my eyes' and she also likes to poke about at used ones.

I am, however, very good about washing my hands, removing all towel fluff and making sure i have the correct lens in the correct eye!

When I wear contact lenses I wear daily disposables. I don't want the hassle of cleaning lenses and would rather have the convenience of packaged disposables. I get them delivered quarterly and pay by monthly direct debit. I wear them more in the summer than the winter and not for very long periods of time or my eyes feel dry. I stopped wearing them for quite a while as when my children were babies my eyes felt too tired to insert contact lenses.

DH wears contacts. He was sleepy tonight and rubbing his eyes, and his lens slipped up above his iris under his eyelid. He continued to rub his eye and fortunately got it out, but told me a tale of an old manager of his who "knew someone" who had lost a lens above their eye that had worked it's way to the back of their eye. They apparently had to have their eyeball removed to remove it.
I googled it and it's not true... phew...

I'm a fortnightly disposable soft lens wearer. I'm on 25+yrs of lens wearing, it all began in ye olden days when lenses lasted a year or two and you had to boil them up in a pan weekly to clean them!!
I've always been a bit obsessive with cleaning and hygiene, hand washing, handling lenses and solutions. No problem there. My only downfall is the lens cases. I have absolutely squillions of the things. Every drawer, handbag or pocket you look in, they're there. And the odd lids down the back of the bed/sofa/cupboard I have a cull occasionally and throw a load of them out. I do wish someone would come up with the blindingly obvious (scuse the pun) idea of hinged lids, then us short sighted fumbling idiots wouldn't have the daily concern of dropping the lid and then be unable to see where it rolled off to!

Daily disposables for me. I get 60 pairs every three months and wear them about 5 days a week. Never wash my hands before putting them in! And I tend to take them out and drop them wherever I happen to be - my kids complain about finding them on the dining table.

I'm a daily disposable wearer too, although not every day - mainly because it's quicker to put a pair of specs on! I am careful about hygiene though. I have discovered that just washing your hands isn't enough if you've been chopping chillies before putting your lenses in though! I did this once - after preparing dinner I went to put my lenses in before guests arrived and I still had chillies tainting my fingers. It really hurt. I had to make the decision of whether to remove the lens I had just put it, and cause that eye more pain, or to put the other lens in and hurt the other eye too! I opted to take the lens out, and spent the rest of the evening with one red, teary eye. Lesson learned!

Have had monthlies for a couple of years now. Wear them for 90% of the week. Always forget when i started a pair so then rely on the solution bottle! When it's empty, the lenses get binned! Hygiene is lacking upon removal, but they are always rubbed in solution and set in fresh solution over night. Have slept in them (after a night out!!) but usually bin that pair (if I have a new set spare) ????????

I used monthly disposables but I'm terrible at changing them regularly so I've actually just paused my order for 6 months in an effort to use up some of my stash! I don't always wash my hands before taking them out if I think they're fairly clean but always take them out before I take eye makeup off as I find the makeup remover irritates them if I don't. I never wear them overnight because it's too uncomfortable and I'm paranoid about getting an eye infection if I do. If I have a cold then I make sure I wash my hands religiously to avoid getting conjunctivitis because it's horrible!

I've only ever had lenses from Specsavers and I've been wearing them daily for 10 years. I love not having to worry about paying separately for eye checks and glasses and find it helpful to be able to pop into a branch if I have any queries.

I wear contacts every day. I wash my hands and pop them in. I use unbranded disposables and one day Acuvue were recommended but are 3 times the price of my current contacts. I do try and have a day off every week if i can but i don't always do that.

I love my contacts as i am blind as a bat without them

I wear daily disposable occasionally, more in the summer. I can't wear them for more than about eight hours as they begin to feel quite sore. But in theory I think they are a good option.

I no longer wear contacts because I knew I was no good with following instructions. I read about the damage that could be caused, so made the decision to wear glasses instead. I was just lazy and forgetful. I would leave disposable contacts in way longer than I should. So yep, made the informed decision not to wear them anymore! Now it's specs for me x

I'll be honest... I hate wearing glasses... loathe them.. and got contacts at 16 (yearly ones then with all the rigmarole!) and pretty much wear them from the minute I wake up to the minute I go to bed - as a teen/early twenties, I wasn't brilliant at the hygiene side but as I reached my thirties and being told off for wearing them too long each day I did kind of pull my socks up and will wear my glasses round the house (only if it's family though - I really ought to get a few pairs of glasses and force myself to wear them more!). I'm also careful to wash hands and have a reminder on my phone to change my lenses on the 1st of the month - I'd forget otherwise! My only complaint is the bottle of solution is too large so it does last me longer than it should - specsavers please offer 2 sizes of solution! I would like to swop to dailies but at the moment, I can't justify the added cost when monthly work so well. That said, DS has dailies as I know his hygiene would not be great!

I love my vision through my contact lenses feels more natural than glasses...

I always plan to wear them less but never do

DH wears daily disposable lenses. He doesn't take much care with hygiene. He takes them out and leaves them on his bedside table