Losing a colored contact lens when you are not at home is stressful. You are probably in a restaurant, a friend’s house, or a public restroom, and you have one lens still in your eye, no case, and no solution. Here is exactly what to do.
Step 1: Accept the Loss
Do not spend ten minutes searching the floor of a public place for a transparent hydrogel disc smaller than a dime. You will not find it. Even if you do, a lens that has touched a public floor should not go back in your eye. Accept that the lens is gone and move to the next step.
Step 2: Remove the Remaining Lens
Wearing one colored contact while the other eye is bare creates an unbalanced visual experience. Your brain receives two different images — one with a colored filter and possibly corrected vision, one without. The discomfort is not dangerous, but it is distracting. Remove the remaining lens.
If you have a contact lens case with you — and after reading this, you will start carrying one — store the remaining lens in fresh solution. If you do not have a case, use a small, clean container. A water bottle cap rinsed with bottled water (not tap water) works in an emergency. Never use tap water directly on your lens.
Step 3: The Emergency Kit
After this happens once, you will start carrying a small emergency kit. A travel-sized bottle of solution, a spare contact lens case, and a sealed backup pair of lenses. The whole kit fits in a pocket or a small bag. It costs about five dollars to assemble and saves you from driving home with one contact lens and uneven vision.
If you wear colored contacts regularly, order two pairs at once. Keep the second pair sealed in their blister packs until you need them. The unopened lenses have a shelf life of four to five years from the manufacture date printed on the foil seal. Our Berry Series and Earl Series lenses are available as individual pairs. Stock up on backup lenses.