Contact Lens Safety: Common Questions Answered

Wearing and caring for contact lenses without damaging the eye.

Key takeaways

• Never use: water, including tap water, on lenses or cases
• Cases: replaced regularly and air-dried, never rinsed in tap water
• Most useful single change: Wash and dry hands before handling lenses.
• Commonest mistake: Water contact of any kind, including showering in lenses.
• See a doctor if any of the signs under "When to speak to a doctor" below apply to you.

What is Contact Lens Safety?

Wearing and caring for contact lenses without damaging the eye.

Why does it matter?

Microbial keratitis is rare but can destroy sight within days, and almost all of it follows avoidable hygiene failures.

Never use for Contact Lens Safety?

Water, including tap water, on lenses or cases.

Sleeping in lenses for Contact Lens Safety?

Substantially raises infection risk unless specifically approved.

What is the single most useful thing to do?

Wash and dry hands before handling lenses.

What is the most common mistake?

Water contact of any kind, including showering in lenses.

When should I see a doctor?

Remove your lenses and seek same-day eye assessment for a red, painful eye, blurred vision, light sensitivity, watering or a feeling that something is in the eye. Contact lens wearers with these symptoms may have microbial keratitis, which can cause permanent sight loss within days. Do not put the lens back in.

Where to go next

• What the Guidance Really Says About Contact Lens Safety
• Contact Lens Safety, Explained Without the Jargon
• Contact Lens Safety — the reference entry
• Diet and Eye Health: Sorting the Evidence From the Noise
• The Evidence on Eye Tests, Without the Hype

When to speak to a doctor

Remove your lenses and seek same-day eye assessment for a red, painful eye, blurred vision, light sensitivity, watering or a feeling that something is in the eye. Contact lens wearers with these symptoms may have microbial keratitis, which can cause permanent sight loss within days. Do not put the lens back in.

Where this comes from

• College of Optometrists — contact lens care
• NHS — Contact lens safety

How this page was put together

Every figure, recommendation and warning above is taken from the guidance named in Where this comes from. Nothing on this page is inferred, summarised or generalised beyond what those bodies publish: where they give a number, it is their number, and where they are silent, so are we. Pages are rebuilt whenever the underlying record changes. Sign-off by a named clinician, where it has happened, is shown at the top of the page along with the date.

Medical disclaimer

This article is general information, not medical advice. It cannot account for your own history, medication or circumstances. Always speak to a GP, pharmacist or another qualified health professional before making changes that affect your treatment, and never delay seeking medical advice because of something you have read here. In an emergency, call 999.