saline solution

[GarethB]

Louise,

It doen't, just my personal preferance to ensure it stays 'cleaner' than if left at room temperature.

One extra precaution which may be why I have never had an eye infection.

It is also good if you need to irrigate your eye because a lens has been uncomfortable, the cool feeling is refreshing and it constricts the blood vessels too so the redness goes quicker.

[Louise Pembroke]

Yes I put a bottle of hypromellose in the fridge for cool irrigation especially in the hayfever season

[sarah.w]

ok well thanks for your help. like you said the best thing is to just give it ok. i'll buy a couple to start with and see how that goes. I've never had a reaction to a product before, so hopefully all will be fine!

[Christine Wright]

Is everyone talking about the same thing here?

If you wear scleral lenses, the saline you put in the lens is in contact with your eye all day long, so it is important that it is preservative free (eg Amidose, Steripod, Normasol, aerosols). Because of the lack of preservatives, the instructions tell you to discard after single use. If you decide to keep them a bit longer (eg Amidose, which has a screw top) it's a good idea to keep it in the fridge, to reduce the risk of bugs growing.

For general rinsing of contact lenses (including sclerals) the standard salines sold in the shops are OK for most people. These have preservatives to make them last longer.

Boiled water could be used as an alternative to saline for rinsing lenses, but not for all day use in a scleral lens. The whole point about saline is that it's the same salinity as natural tears, and there is an important balance between tears and cornea to maintain the correct hydration and transparency.

Are you having problems getting all types, or just preservative free? Last time this happened, they put a very useful article by Ken Pullum on the KC group website, giving the alternatives- I wonder if that article is still available?

Hope this is helpful

[Louise Pembroke]

I'm an RGP wearer, the ones I get from all the various supermarkets/chemists are usually preservative free and all brands are hard to obtain. One branch of Asda said that supplies won't be available till the end of March, even with the online postoptics one of the brands they can't currently supply [Ciba].

[sarah.w]

Im talking about general saline to wash off scleral/contact lenses after i clean them off with miraflow. i use amidose to fill the lens before i insert them. It would be really useful if we could find ken's article.