How Long Can You Leave Contact Lenses in Their Case For?

By Amy Nutt

It doesn't matter what kind of contact lens you wear, there are times in which you have to take them out. How often you have to take them out of your eyes depends on what kind of contacts you have. For example, you may have a daily wear contact lens that requires you to dispose of them daily. Then again, you may have an extended wear contact lens that doesn't require you to take them out for a month.

The different kinds of contacts

First, it is a good idea to discuss the different kinds of contacts. As mentioned before, there are daily contact lenses that you throw away daily. Those should not have to be put into a contact lens case. This is unless you need to take them out at some point during the day. However, you don't need to take them out for part of the day and then put them back in the next day so that you get an entire day's wear out of them. They're daily, so just throw them away.

There are also contacts that you wear for a week and throw away at the end of that week. These are most likely contacts that you're going to take out at the end of the day before you go to bed. You can keep them in your case overnight. If you don't feel like wearing them the next day, you can leave them in their case and wear your eyeglasses. The same applies to those contact lenses that you throw away every two weeks and monthly contacts. You take them out every night and put them back in the next morning.

The next contact lens on the list involves extended wear contact lenses. These are the contacts that you can wear for an entire month before taking them out. However, you don't have to take them out, which means there is no reason for the case. When the 30 days are up, they simply go into the trash can and nowhere else. They should not go to your contact lens case for anything. The only time that should happen is if you have to take them out at some point during your 30 day wear period.

How long to leave them in their case

Well, you have read that there are contact lenses you wear and throw away after wear. Those are the daily contact lenses and the extended wear that you will throw away after a month. As stated before, you may not have to put those in a case at all unless you have to take them out sometime during your wear period.

As for your others, you simply store them overnight. But what do you do if something happens that requires you to take them out for a prolonged period of time? What if you're wearing extended wear contacts and you don't complete the time in which you are to wear them? What do you do?

Truthfully, contacts can remain in contact lens cases for six months to a year. It is just a matter of whether or not you want to do something like that. To keep yourself on a schedule, it is ideal to throw away daily contact lenses. However, you may find yourself in a situation where you were only able to wear a weekly contact for a day. Does that mean you can put it in your case and put it back in next week? That shouldn't be an issue. If you had an infection of some sort, it may be a good idea to throw it away, though. The same rule applies to all of the different kinds of contact lenses. But if you're more than halfway through your wear period, go ahead and throw them away. - 18095

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