Lens case cleaning away from home...

[GarethB]

Haven't posted for ages due to studying at college oustide working hours, but now all that is on hold as Inow have a new job based in Brussles. That to one side I am travelling round Europe a lot which includes the UK

The problem that I have encountered is that fewer hotels have a proper kettle and instead have these fancy cartridge things to do Espresso's and other filter coffee's. Even the offices that I visit are unable to help as they too have fancy drinks machines that do a very nice brew. The ones that can do hot water usually have a few bits in from the remains of the last cartridge used for a drink.

All this means a distinct lack of cooled boiled water to clean lens cases between use, I can take enough cases to last but then I would need between 7 and 21 if I were to use a new one each day. I could use a cold sterilising solution as one would use to clean baby bottles but then adds to the solutions that I carry on to the plain.

So to summarise, how many have experienced this problem, perhaps not through their work but when going on holiday?

I am sure that I will find a simply way round this problem as I settle more in to my new job which I can do as I no longer have any time limits on how long I can wear my lenses. Yet to wear them for 24 hours but mainly because I am too tired and need to go to bed which is now the limiting factor.

[Libby]

Hi Gareth

Ive just got back from a fortnights holiday and luckily a friend of mine had been to the hotel previously and warned me that there was no kettle in the room. I therefore took a travel kettle with me. I use boiling water to clean my lens case every night - dont know whether it is a acceptable way but is easier than waiting for the water to cool down.

Kind Regards
Libby

[dalbeath]

Emmm....What am I missing? I just run mine under the tap and then leave to air dry?

Why do you need cooled boiled water? Sorry to sound so blonde?

[GarethB]

The damp tip on he tap outlet is an ideal breading ground for bacteria and in hard water areas you may not see it but lime scale can be suspended in the water which settles in the lens case. Even with perfect eye seight you won't see it but it can be the cause of scratched lenses hard or soft lenses. I have found when I have done this that a bit sticks on the lens, it is agony when the lens goes in.

As our means of seeing is reliant on contact lenses, so the last thing you want is an eye infection. For me having grafts that are now over 21 years old eye infectioncs carry a major risk to the graft as it does with anyone post graft so keeping lens cases sterilised is important hence the cooled boiled water.

For long haul trips a small travel kettle will be the way forward, I had completly forgotton about that as an option, as I now go camping my mind automatically switched to the fact you can't take camping stoves on to a plane. Bit of a thick moment probably due to the travel and the fact there is little hair on my head now to protect from the heat so my brain probably over heated

[dalbeath]

Thanks Gareth
I never knew that

[Lynn White]

Hi Gareth,

I would have said you were having a bit of a blonde moment yourself there lol!

Nice to see you settling in and good to see you posting again. Hope you do get more time to pop on here now you are out and about.

Lynn

[GarethB]

I'll be having words Mrs White when I next see you

My excuse is that I am getting up at mainland Europe time but still going to bed at UK time and because the hotel is only 10 minutes from the office I am working longer than normal.

Anyways I am using some of what you sent me in a package a couple of weeks back, don't know if I was supposed to but since when has that worried me?

[Anna Mason]

Sorry to ask but is this for a specific type of lens no lenses I have ever see water just saline,Aosept and a Cleaner.

?

[GarethB]

I wear soft lenses for KC but abyone cleaning a lens case be it for soft, RGP Corneal Lenses, RGP Scleral, Hybrid lenses, whichever, the lens cases should always be cleaned regularly with cooled boiled water to prevent any microbial growth in the cases contaminating a lens which is then put in the eye leading to eye infections.

Sunderland eye hospital did a study about three years ago and most eye infections they traced to poor hygiene which included cleaning of the contact lens case. Most cases were people wearing lenses for vanity but there were some cases of people that rely on contact lenses like us that had eye infections due to poor hygiene. For us it is often worse because it often means art least a week with no useable vision at all.

Hope this makes things clearer.

[Anna Mason]

It does make sense but I use the Hydrogen Peroxide system and throw my case away regularly I have worn lenses for 45 years and have never used Boiled water I rinse out with saline. I am going to Oxford Friday and will ask. My Scleral is cleaned after removal and stored dry and then cleaned again before insertion but then if I was going to clean my Scleral case I would go for boiled water.