Yesterday’s post discussed how to look after your contact lenses. Whilst cleaning and storing your contact lenses is paramount to reducing the likelihood of any bacteria developing, insert and removing your contact lenses correctly also ensures that the risk of any problems occurring is reduced.

Inserting Your Contact Lenses

1. Ensure your hands are clean and free from any dirt of dust by washing them under warm, soapy water
2. As it is best to develop a routine, always start with your right eye
3. Place the lens on the middle finger of your right hand, with the concave side facing up
4. Using two fingers on your let hand, open your top eye lid
5. Pulling the lower eye lid down with a spare finger on your right eye, begin to place the contact lens onto the eye centre. Being in front of a mirror will generally help this process
6. Once the contact lens is on the eye, allow your top eye lid to fall over your eye, followed by your bottom eye lid
7. The contact lens should now be in place and feel comfortable. If not, remove the contact lens and start the process again
8. Repeat and follow the above steps for your left eye
9. Rinse out your contact lens case and allow to dry

Removing Your Contact Lenses
1. Once again, ensure your hands are clean by washing them with warm, soapy water
2. Facing a mirror, maneuver your head so your right eye is looking towards the centre of your face
3. Opening your eyes wide, ensure that both your eye lids are not touching the contact lens
4. Press and pull the corner of your eye, so your eye lids become tight
5. Blink your eyes and the contact lens will come out
6. To begin with, this procedure can be a little difficult to get to grips with. If the contact lens fails to fall out of your eye, repeat the process from step 2
7. Rinse and clean the contact lens
8. Store in it’s disinfected case
9. Repeat and follow the procedure for your left eye

Unsurprisingly, a lot of contact lenses are damaged and become unwearable due to the fact that many people don’t know how, or forget to, look after their contact lenses properly. If you take proper care of your contact lenses, you can ensure the best possible experience when wearing your contact lenses.

• Only wear your contact lenses for the allotted time – contact lenses have come on leaps and bounds over the past 50 years and they are available in many different styles, types and wearable lengths. Always ensure you wear your contact lenses for the recommended time. For example, if you have daily disposable contact lenses, make sure you take them out after the day has ended. Similarly, if you have contact lenses that can be worn for two weeks, don’t be tempted to wear them for another week – it will cause a variety of problems and may result in your vision deteriorating.

• Wash them properly and as recommended – There are some exceptions, for example, extended use contact lenses, but most contact lenses needed to be cleaned daily. Always ensure you use a high quality cleaner and that your contact lenses are never stored or worn after they have been dropped, without washing them first.

• Store your contact lenses in a clean environment – as well as your contact lenses, the case which they are stored in must also be kept extremely clean to ensure no bacteria develops and is then transferred onto the contact lens. Keep your contact lens case clean by using a daily soaking solution that keeps the case and contact lenses both fresh and disinfected.

Following the above three points should ensure a safe and clean environment for your contact lenses, reducing any risk of bacteria or infection developing.

As mentioned previously, the problem with a lot of futuristic based contact lenses is that our technology is currently as advanced as many peoples’ ideas – and some experts believe it may take longer than expected for them to both be on the same level.

Daniel Palanker, a Stanford University expert on retinal implants argues a very interesting point. Palanker explained that most people’s eyes cannot focus properly or effectively on anything closer than 25 cm and no matter how much technology is produced and developed, as it’s an issue with the actual eye and not technology, it could be a major problem. Because of this, he is questioning many people’s future contact lens ideas, explaining that the quality of image would be so poor it would be somewhat pointless in creating the contact lens.

Of course, as with most stumbling blocks, there are ways and means round it. One Simon Fraser University professor has replied to Palanker’s theory, explaining that the 25 cm problem is only an issue when light enters the eye at the ‘normal’ angle. However, if it could be adjusted so it entered at a different angle, there is a very high likelihood that this issue could be solved.

Even if Palanker was correct and there was no way around the issue, that doesn’t mean these contact lenses cannot be put to good use elsewhere. For example, the quality of image isn’t a factor when creating contact lenses for medical reasons other than correcting the wearer’s vision – such as sending data on people’s health back to their GP via the contact lens or, as mentioned previously, administering regular dosages of medicine.

Similar to the contact lens with at television screen in it, a variety of University of Washington developers are currently working on a contact lens that would allow interaction with a variety of different devices.

The development began after Babak Parviz, an expert in the field of electrical engineering, began to think about revolutionising the contact lens concept. Until recently, contact lenses were used primarily for correcting vision and it has only been the last few years that has seen coloured contact lenses become popular and worn for non-medical reasons. However, this section of the contact lens market is minimal, with medical contact lenses dominating overall. Parviz wondered whether it was possible to develop a contact lens that instead being manufactured to correct vision was created to enhance the wearer’s experience.

The ideas may seem a little farfetched at first – Parviz believes that contact lenses will eventually replace the need for most handheld devices – but when listening and understanding his ideas and theories, they seem completely plausible.

For example, one of Parviz’s ideas is to create a contact lens that will allow the wearer to be fully submerged in a gaming environment. Playing the latest computer games on a High Definition television seems immense – currently. But what would they seem like if there were no surroundings, as if the gamer was sat 2 inches from the television screen, but everything was in crystal clear focus?

Of course, Parviz’s developments are someway off being marketed yet, if not purely for the fact that our technology isn’t at the same level as his ideas. However, the wheels are in motion and it may be sooner than most would think that we are all wearing electronic contact lenses.

After the recent post regarding the possibility of television screens being designed and implemented into contact lenses, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at what the future holds for contact lenses on a wider scale.

When you consider the forward steps that the contact lens world has taken in the past 100 years (or even the past 50 years), in theory, the next couple of decades should bring some remarkable achievements with contact lenses.

A lot of research has already been carried, some behind closed doors (as well as barred windows in high security buildings) and some more freely available. Some of the ideas are no where near possible, due to the limitations we currently have in the technological department, whilst others are extremely close to being finished and finalised, ready to be brought on to the contact lens market.

For example, a group of students at the University of Florida have developed a contact lens that administers medicine at regular, pre-decided intervals. On first glance, these contact lenses appear to be no different than regular contact lenses. However, when looking more closely, the contact lenses are created with many nanoparticles which are full of the appropriate medicine. Furthermore, as the contact lenses are created with the medicine as part of the actual contact lens, no deterioration in vision is caused. There has been huge praise for this contact lens development, as compared to eye-drops where the majority of the medicine enters the patients bloodstream rather than the eye, these contact lenses should release the medicine solely into the eye, ensuring a quicker and more effective recovery.

In Part 1 of this two part series, we looked into the initial creation of contact lenses. In this second part, we’re going to look into what happens after the main contact lens has been created – the finishing, quality control checks and finally the packaging.

Finishing – after the contact lens has been created, either by moulding or lathing, the lens requires more specific curvature to be created for it fit comfortably on the wearer’s eye. As with the polishing part of the lathing process when creating the contact lens, the contact lens is placed upon an arbor where small slices are taken, followed by precise smooth finishing with emery paper.

Quality Control – further to the contact lens being created and finished, each contact lens must pass through a rigorous Quality Control procedure. This is carried out throughout the manufacturing process and once again at the end, by two separate procedures. Firstly, the contact lenses are viewed under a microscope to see any obvious problems. Secondly, a shadowgraph is created of the contact lens, which shows any issues with the contact lenses on a greater scale for easier viewing. Whilst some differences between contact lenses may be not be problematic (mainly for cosmetic contact lenses), if the contact lenses are custom made, it is extremely important that any issue or problem with the contact lens is discovered and amended before it is ready to be sold.

Packaging – before the contact lenses can be delivered to the store or pharmacy, they must be packaged to a certain standard. Generally, contact lenses are first boiled for hours and packaged in sterile material, with a saline solution. Once this process has taken place, the contact lenses are ready to be delivered and worn.

The process of manufacturing contact lenses can be split up into four separate areas – moulding or lathing, finishing, quality control and packaging. In Part 1 of this two part series, we’re going to take a look at the moulding and lathing processes.

When contact lenses are being created, there are two initial ways to create the contact lens – the moulding method and the lathing method. Both have their own benefits and both are still used to create contact lenses today.

Moulding – when contact lenses were first being produced by the moulding procedure, they were initially created by pouring a mixture of fluids into a rotating mould. The contact lens shape was created by both the mould itself and by how fast the mould was rotating.

Over the years, injection moulding was introduced, which is a much more reliable and easier means of creating contact lenses by moulding. In essence, the fluids are injected into a pressure mould at a high temperature, quickly removed and allowed to cool, with finishing taking place on a lathe. Extremely effective in creating high quality contact lenses in mass quantities, injection moulding has only been in use in recent years.

Lathing – A longer, but more finished process of creating contact lenses is by using a lathe for the full process. The contact lens material is mounted upon a lathe, which turns at a set speed and angle, allowing for the cutting tool to carry out its work and effectively make the actual contact lens. After the process, the lens is placed upon a separate machine where it is polished and coated to ensure no rough or uneven edges and to give it a safe finish.

Closing your eyes and drifting away to a different a place is so easy to do. Whether you’re on the bus or in the bath, flying on a trans-Atlantic flight or simply laid in bed, once you close your eyes you can be taken away to a world millions of miles away, that only you know about.

However, how would you feel if you could close your eyes, just like you would above, but instead of your own little world, you see a live NBA game? Or maybe the latest cinema release? Sounds crazy? Well, it may not be as crazy as you would think.

Future Laboratory Consultancy, a firm that advises companies on the latest technological advances, has compiled a report that in the not so distant future, it will be possible to have a TV screen inside a contact lens.

On the surface, the idea seems light years away. However, when in comparison to the forward steps the TV industry has made over the last 50 years, the next 50 years should bring some amazing feats. For example, it wasn’t until the 1950’s that colour televisions were being built safely and effectively. These televisions were, by today’s standards, unsightly and somewhat unwatchable. This was developed over the coming years and today we have ultra-thin, High Definition TV’s – available in screens that fit onto a digital watch face. If someone in the 1950’s was told that in a few decade’s time, they could be watching television on their watch, in such good quality they’ll think they’re in the programme, they would have bet their world that it’s impossible. Now compare that advance to what we could see by 2060 and the idea of Contact Lens TV seems utterly achievable and realistic.

Further to hearing a speech by one of the leaders in the antiseptic industry at the time, Joseph Lister, Robert Johnson discussed the idea with his James Wood Johnson and Edward Mead Johnson, his brothers, of creating a variety of dressings for wounds that were ready to use. Whilst this was a leading invention for its time, none of the trio were able to predict the size the company would become and what they would end up producing.

Born in 1845 as Robert Wood Johnson, Johnson was one of eleven siblings. It was in 1861, when he was 16 that Johnson’s long-living career began. Taking an apprenticeship in apothecary, Johnson honed his skills and began to work on antiseptic dressings only a few years later. Working on his antiseptic dressings and sterile equipment over the following decades, by 1878 Johnson (and his then partner George Seabury) were turning over in excess of $10,000 per month – in excess of a quarter of a million dollars per month, in today’s money).

Johnson stopped working with Seabury and began working with his two brothers, James Wood Johnson and Edward Mead Johnson. Creating and developing the same line of products, the company, Johnson and Johnson, was turning over $25,000 a month in 1888. Already, this was a definite sign of things to follow for the company.

Over the years, the company produced a variety of products – from Band-Aid plasters starting in 1890 to the world’s first daily disposable contact lens almost a century late in the 1980’s. Each and every one of Johnson and Johnson’s product has become a household name or been of a major help to companies worldwide – all thanks to Robert Wood Johnson’s idea of creating a simple yet effective antiseptic dressing.

Being the first person to create a wearable contact lens, Adolf Fick is generally credited with the creation of contact lenses. However, if it wasn’t for William Feinbloom’s work in the field, there is a large possibility that contact lenses would still be hard and uncomfortable objects.

Born in 1903 in Brooklyn, New York Feinbloom had a view to becoming an optometrist from an early age, learning his skills from his father. By 1922, Feinbloom graduated from Columbia University and over the coming 17 years, honed his skills and received a PhD in 1939.

Feinbloom is renowned for his work in the field of low vision and the rehabilitation of vision; however it was three years prior to his PhD that Feinbloom’s most notable work was produced. In 1936, Feinbloom developed the world’s very first plastic-based contact lens. Using polymethyl methacrylate – or Perspex, as it is more commonly known – Feinbloom’s discovery was fantastic news for the contact lens world. Taking over from the then traditional glass-blown contact lenses, this development finally allowed for more comfortable and wearable contact lenses to be created. Of course, these developments didn’t produce perfect contact lenses, but they definitely lead the way for the future.

Over the years, Feinbloom gained mass recognition for his work and five years before he died, he was honoured with a Doctorate of Ocular Sciences from Northern Illinois College of Optometry. Passing away in 1985, Feinbloom’s work made gigantic footsteps in the world of contact lenses, giving the world affordable and wearable contact lenses.