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Contact lens care
Last reviewed: 06.07.2025
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Gas permeable hard contact lenses are relatively easy to care for. They should be stored in special containers in an aqueous environment. Since many lenses contain silicone, special solutions containing cleaning, disinfecting and lubricating substances must be used to treat them.
Soft contact lenses, in addition to disinfection, require special methods of storage and cleaning from deposits. Currently, peroxide systems and multifunctional solutions are used for this purpose.
Peroxide systems are effective in cleaning and disinfecting lenses, but a necessary condition for their use is the neutralization of the action of peroxide. For this purpose, a solution of sodium thiosulfate is used.
Multifunctional solutions solve several problems at once: they clean the lens from deposits, disinfect and moisturize it, and are used to store the lens. Modern multifunctional solutions are practically non-toxic and do not cause allergies.
The general principles of caring for soft contact lenses are approximately the same: at night, the lens is placed in a container with a multifunctional solution, in the morning it is washed, after which it is ready for use.
There are no problems or inconveniences associated with the care of soft contact lenses when using lenses of two new classes - daily and continuous (up to 30 days) wear. True, both the first and the second are quite expensive, so daily lenses are often prescribed for periodic wear (during sports, business trips, etc.). In uncomplicated cases, continuous wear lenses really do not require care. We will only add that this is the newest class of soft contact lenses and so far there is not enough clinical data to confirm their complete safety.
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