Cleaning

[Libby]

Can anyone please clarify what I should be cleaning my RGP Rose K lenses with. For years I cleaned them each evening with Boston cleaner and tap water, then after being referred to Moorfields I was told I must never use tap water but I should be using cooled boiled water. I have now been doiing this for a number of years but a friend of mine has now told me that this isnt safe! What should I be using. Any advice would be gratefully accepted
Libby

[John Smith]

Hi Libby,

I can't personally see how cooled boiled water isn't safe, but plain tapwater won't be if you are storing your lenses wet.

One option (preferred by many clinicians) is to purchase saline solution for that very purpose. Most supermarkets have a relatively inexpensive own brand which will do the job well.

[IH]

Libby,

I also use the Boston cleaner and get the cleaner off using tap water (as advised by optician). But I also store the lenses using Boston Conditioning Solution (the blue bottle).

However, a quick search on google brought up many websites advising to never use tap water during the cleaning process, which now has me a little worried!

I would be interested though to hear others opinions on using tap water during the cleaning process.

Cheers
IH

[Libby]

IH
Yeah I also store my lenses in Boston conditioning solution. After meeting and chatting to a lady in a local cafe she was telling me she had just been told never to use tap water or cooled boiled water. She had started to use saline solution but felt she could never get the squeaky clean feeling you can using water. She wasnt happy using saline! I just wondered if I was safe carrying on using my cooled boiled water
Libby

[Kirsten]

As far as i'm aware you shouldn't use tap water if it is going to enter your eye.

The way I cleaned my RGP lens though was with the cleaning solution 1st, then I had to rinse it off with tap water .. but after that I'd soak them over night and that would disinfect them and get rid of any of the harmful effects of the tap water!

Hope that made some kind of sense

Kirsten

[GarethB]

Tap water despite going through a purification process contains chlorine and fluorides which can irritate the eye. Boiling the watre helps remove some of these, but if you live in a hard water area you can build up calcium deposits on the lens. Do not irritate the eye but can cause minute scratches on the lens which over time (depending how frequently you change lenses) could lead to a fogging effect.

Saline is manufactured from de-ionised water which is different to distilled water. De-ionised is basically purer and is made in streile conditions. Chemicals are then added to the de-ionised water to make it saline. Pretty much all contain the same components but differ in the proportions and if they are preserved, the type of preservative used.

I would always advise cleaning lens cases with cooled boiled water. The wetting/conditioning solution acts as a neutraliser for the cleaning solution and a lens disinfectant. The after cleaning lenses in cleaner, rinse the cleaner off thoroughly with saline before putting the lenses into their case.

Saline should also be used when using the protein remover tablets with lenses.

[Sweet]

NO NO NO to tap water! LOL!!!

I just don't think it is a safe way to rinse lenses that i am going to put in my eye, we don't know what gets added to it and hard water is a big no! Also being a plumbers daughter i always think of those mixer taps where the piping is linked to the hot water supply, loads of bacteria live in the heating system and water tanks, so i think i would rather keep well away!!

Saline is what i use to rinse my lenses, which is very cheap from any supermarket or chemist and a large bottle lasts ages

Hoping you work something out soon! ... Sweet X x X

[Kirsten]

I used to rinse the lens with saline before putting it in my eye.. the tap water was only to get rid of all the cleaning solution before soaking the lens over night in disinfecting solution.

Saline would work just as well to get rid of the cleaning solution too though actually - I just never thought of it. Only did what I was initially taught.

[Andrew MacLean]

Libby

If you live in a "hard water" area, it is possible, I suppose, that boiled tap water might leave a deposit on the surface of the lens. You'd know about this because the lens would become uncomfortable and your vision would be changed. As to any bugs in the water, I'd have thought that boiling would remove or exterminate these.

All the best

Andrew

[GarethB]

Boiling water gets rid of most, but not all bacteria. There are also fungi in water and boiling that just makes them produce spores which can grow into more fungi.

Eye infections are always either bacterial or fungal in nature.

Bacteria are the most resilient creatures known to man. Part of my final year thesis at Uni proved that the bacteria found at the head of the north sea oil rig drilling heads and those found in the black smokers of the mid Atlantic ridge were the same and survived equally well in each others conditions. Due to watter pressure a couple of miles down, water boils at over 10 degrees C and aour resident Navel Diver amttew will tell you how cold the North Sea is in Scotland!