SEE RELATED: How to read your contact lens prescription
Before you do anything else, thoroughly wash your hands with soap and water; this decreases the chance of an eye infection. The ophthalmology group recommends staying away from soap that contains extra oils or fragrances, as soap can stick to the surface of a lens.
Dry your hands with tissues or a lint-free cloth so that particles don’t wind up floating around in one or both of your eyes.
Stand over a clean, flat surface when handling your contacts. If you’re over a sink, be sure to plug the drain.
Always put the first contact lens in the same eye, either the right or left. This keeps you from mixing up the right-eye and left-eye contacts, which typically have different power or measurements.
Remove one of the lenses from the storage case, then carefully slide it into your hand. Use your fingertips, rather than your nails, to handle the lens.
Rinse the lens with contact-lens solution. If you drop a lens, rinse it with solution again before trying to put it in your eye.
Put the contact lens on the tip of either the index finger or middle finger of the hand you write with. Be sure to look for torn or damaged spots on the lens.
Check to see that the lens is right-side out. If the lens forms a bowl and the edges turn up, you’re ready to put it on your eye. If the lens looks like a lid — the edges are turned out — reverse the lens.
Hold your upper eyelid open with your non-writing hand while looking in the mirror. Hold down your lower eyelid with the middle or ring finger of your writing hand. As an alternative, you can use the thumb and fingers of your non-writing hand to widely open your upper and lower eyelids.
Put the lens on your eye. Look in front of you or at the ceiling while doing this.
Slowly shut your eyes and roll them in a full circle to help the lens settle properly. Open your eyes and gently blink a few times. Look in a mirror to see whether the lens shows up in the center of your eye.
If the lens is inserted and centered correctly, your eye should feel comfortable and your vision should be clear. If you feel discomfort or your vision is blurry, you’ll need to take out and reinsert the lens.
Once you’ve got the first lens in, repeat the process with the second lens.