Tips for getting in contacts?!

Tips for getting in contacts?

so my doctor told me i had to put them in and take them out 3 times before i can take them home, so shes sure im responsible or not. and i couldnt take them out and it took me like 30 minutes and she said i had to come back sunday to see if i can do it cuz i was taking alot of time and there was an appointment after me, that might have sounded rude but she said it nicely im just trying to make this short lol, i also had long nails so it was hard to hold, i think that was the only problem though. so are there any tips you can give me on putting in and taking out contacts for the first time?

When you have long nails, it can make it very difficult to take out lenses. When I'm doing instructionals on patients with the long dagger-like nails, I always cringe.

My tip to you, like so many others have posted, would be to get rid of the nails, at least until you've had the lenses a while and are comfortable handling the lenses.

I don't wear contacts myself. I've tried and my eyes are just too darn dry and I always had a really hard time getting them out because they stick to my eyes. It was like trying to peel wallpaper off. It was awful, so I gave up. I could get them in without a problem and if my eyes weren't so dry, I could get them out. If you find that your eyes seem to be dry when taking the contacts out, try putting in some re-wetting drops. The lenses come out a lot easier when your eyes are moist.

But, aside from that, I suspect that the nails are the main problem. You'll have to decide which you want more - the contacts, or the nails.

Also, about them telling you that you'll have to come back...I've had to do that countless times. In the office I work in, we block off an hour for the instructional appointment. If its going to run longer, we have them call it quits and reschedule to come in. This is for several reasons:

1. After an hour of poking at your eyes, your eyes get red and irritated so its not good to keep doing it for hours on end. We'd have people sit there poking all darn day if we let them. Once the eyes get irritated, then when you do get the lenses in, they hurt.

2. After an hour, typically, the patient has become completely frustrated and flustered. Its best to just end it then because once they loose concentration, they usually aren't going to get it in anyway.

3. An instructional is normally a scheduled appointment and requires either the doctor, or most likely one of the opticians in the office to sit there with you and it isn't practical to have someone tied up for an unspecified amount of time. There are other patients that need to be taken care of so that is why most offices will block off a certain amount of time for that sort of thing. It's not to be rude, but honestly, it isn't practical at all to just let someone sit there for 2 or 3 hours, trying to get contacts in. We'll let them come back as many times as they want to until they either get them in, or give up. But we must set some type of limit on how long you can sit there and try.