Care of Bifocal Contact Lenses

Bifocal contact lenses require the same kind of cleaning care that regular contact lenses do. Contact lenses are made in different types of materials, and the type of material that your lenses are made from will determine how you care for your bifocal contacts.

Bifocal Contacts

• Bifocal contact lenses work in the same way that bifocal glasses correct vision; they both have a distance correction to help you see far away and a near correction to help you see close up.
  Contacts that correct for both far and near come in many different styles and materials. The two most cost common styles of bifocal contacts are the lenses that have the bifocal right in the contact and the lenses that have one lens for far and one for near correction, called monovision bifocal contacts.
  Both types of bifocal lenses come in two main types of materials: a silicone soft contact and a more rigid lens, called Rigid Gas Permeable (RGP) or the less common rigid material called PMMA. Soft lenses are more common but sometimes an RGP lens is used to correct for astigmatism or vision corrections that soft lenses cannot help.
  Soft bifocal lenses and rigid bifocal lenses require different cleaning solutions and methods. Your eye doctor will usually give you a starter kit of specific cleaning solutions for your lenses and instruct you how to clean and store your lenses.
  Both soft and rigid lenses use a certain kind of cleaning, disinfecting, storing or rinsing solution. Some lenses require a weekly or monthly cleaning, called an enzymatic or protein remover, too.

Cleaning Soft Bifocal Contacts

• Always wash hands before handling contact lenses. Put one to two drops of recommended cleaning solution on your lens and gently rub the solution into both sides of the lenses with your finger tip, holding the lens in the palm of your other hand. Thoroughly rinse the lens with your saline or rinsing solution. Fill your clean lens case with fresh saline or storing solution and place lenses in case. If recommended by your eye doctor, use an enzymatic cleaner as needed to clean protein build-up off your lenses.

Cleaning Rigid Bifocal Contacts

• A common cleaning solution for rigid gas permeable or PMMA bifocal contacts contains a combination of cleaning-disinfecting-storage solution, which is a very convenient way to clean lenses. If this is the type of solution you will use for your RGP lens, you simply use a few drops of the solution on the lenses and clean them gently in the palm of your hand by rubbing the solution on both sides of the contacts. Then rinse the lenses with the same solution and store the lenses in a clean case, soaking in the same solution.
  You may also use a separate cleaning and storage solution similar to soft lenses. Check with your doctor if you are unsure which type of cleaning solutions you should be using.
  Your doctor may recommend an enzymatic cleaner to remove protein build-up on your contacts. These special cleanings are usually done weekly or monthly, depending on how much build-up you experience. Each person produces protein from his tears onto his lenses a little differently.