Setting up your workspace

Handy items for your lens application workstation

• Non-moisturizing hand soap

• Lint free towel

• Rubber sink strainer

• 3x magnification mirror

• Alcohol prep pads

• Nail trimmers

Wash & dry

No moisturizers in your hand soap

Moisturizing soaps contain oils that will transfer to your lenses and can affect your vision and comfort. Hand soaps for contact lens users, such as OcuSoft, are great, and there are many other options, such as Neutrogena, or Dial bar soap, or even Dawn dish soap.

Dry thoroughly after washing

Drying your hands is also important. Due to acanthamoeba risk, you don't want tap water getting on your lenses, so towel-dry.

Sitting or standing?

Follow the training given you at the doctor's office. Then, if something is not working for you, it's worth experimenting. Some people find it works best for them if they are seated at a table with a towel and a mirror laid flat on the table. Others do all their lens care standing at the bathroom counter. 

Preventing lens loss and breakage

You need a safe space for lens application and removal. Sclerals can be costly to replace.

Spread a towel

Scleral lenses bounce, fly, drop, roll, and get scratched or cracked or even shattered. There is nothing quite like the sensation when you drop a lens worth hundreds - or in some cases thousands - of dollars and have no idea where it ended up.

A towel can 'catch' a lens, give it a soft landing and hold it in place till you find it.

Cover that drain!

If you handle your lenses at the sink, use a sink strainer or (better yet) a towel. You wouldn't believe how many of us have lost a lens down a drain, or dismantled a drain in the attempt to retrieve a lens.