what's the longest you've spent trying to put yr contact lenses in before giving up

35 mins just now -- left in, right went in but felt like it was inside out, after taking out again just couldn't get it not to hang on my fkn eyelid >:(

i have ppl coming round at 12 so had to give up on it

(i haven't actually used them much recently as they are no good for work and i only use them for social and got out of that habit a few months back unfortunately)

I've disposables so can just start totally fresh when one eye isn't playing ball

disposables for me too but i'm trying multifocals out before my next appointment on friday and i only have 5 of each (4 now) -- i do actually have a ton of the old ones but the point is to see whether the new strengths are right and to switch

whether to switch

never failed since my abortive first try aged 15 (how different my life could have been!) but I had a truly horrendous experience once with one of those hydrogen peroxide plus tablet jobbies. I forgot the tablet obv

Can't remember the last time I had trouble. I do know that once while traveling I had one crap out so I had to spend two days with one good eye so now I always have a box of 4-6 with me in the carry-on man purse

First three months I had a p optimistic jab technique, red eyes and a real bad attitude towards contacts

Since correcting the technique it's been plain sailing

truly horrendous experience once with one of those hydrogen peroxide plus tablet jobbies. I forgot the tablet obv

Ouch. Never had any trouble putting them in, tbh, but every once in a while I drop one, and finding where the invisible bugger went becomes a blurry nightmare. Sometimes they're on the sink, sometimes the counter, sometimes stuck to my shirt, under the eyelid, clinging for dear life, etc.

Over the summer I dropped a lens on the floor of a cruise ship bathroom, and while I know they clean those floors and everything all the time, I thought, well, if dropping a contact on the floor of a cruise ship bathroom is not enough reason to switch to my backup pair then I don't know what is.

IME, the only time you should actually put pressure on your eye is when taking them out. When putting them in, you should just hold the contact just close enough so that it just slips on to your eye, surface tension or whatever does the real work. Never push it on.

When taking them out, unless you've really dried out, you shouldn't touch your actual eye much, you should only have to touch the contact - your finger should be wet enough to pick it. Pushing around with your finger is bad news. When my eyes are dry I usually have decent luck holding one lid in place and blinking/winking it out.

I suspect my technique is p terrible (doubly so reading tombot's post): but also I hadn't done it for months, and just lost what knack I'd gained. I'd got pretty good when I was doing it regularly. Also my lenses are for far-off stuff, not close up. Part of the problem is I mostly work at home, reading or on a computer, and putting lenses in to then use the close-up glasses I also need to write or read is (a) useless faff, (b) delivering fairly inadequate vision. The close-up glasses are just bought over the counter x 2 lenses, in no way adjusted to my specific needs. They're fine if I have my lenses in and need to check my phone, or watch TV while posting to ilx -- but hopeless for actual hour-on-hour screenwork.

with the exception of a year or two when I decide to wear glasses most of the time -- which I chalk up to taking a couple different medications that can dry your eyes out, making contacts kind of a bother. other than that, I think I've been shoving these things in my eyes for over twenty years

hasn't taken me more than 3 seconds except for situations where there is discomfort, in order to add a little more saline. other than that, it's easy peasy for me.

btw, if you ever grab a rando contact solution at your house without reading/noticing that it's a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, you will never make that mistake again

Have stuck with glasses for years now.

it's taken me half an hour to take a lens out before. that thing where you rub your eyes and somehow the lens gets all rucked up and jammed in your eye socket somewhere and you spend ages blinking away and trying to dig the fucker out, but you're not really sure if it's gone up or down or maybe all the way round into your cranium and now it's stuck itself to your frontal lobe. or actually it might have just fallen out anyhow and all that discomfort is just the irritation caused by your poking and prodding, so you decide to leave it well alone but you spend the next ten minutes sitting there being all like

http://ilarge.lisimg.com/image/7403941/740full-antonin-artaud.jpg

yeah, getting out can be another matter if you haven't used rewetting and been in a dry environment.

I'm with Sund4r

I feel yr pain, you guys.

I have been there with the arrrgggh, and have occasionally sacked them. Longest time period about a week.

lol after a long break using them i have once again totally forgotten how to get the slippery little twerps onto my eyeballs to stay

4 eyes better than 2, as I used to say to my older brother.

do you have astigmatism, mark?

i don't think, no

the first time I tried contracts I spend two hours at the optometrist trying to get them in. Afterwards I had to go to the job centre with red eyes that made me look like I had been crying for hours. I have strictly been a glasses person ever since.

i got quite quck and good at putting them in after i started this thread -- thanks to tombot's suggestion upthread not to *push* them into your eye, but let surface tension be yr friend

but the trick has since gone out of my fingers and eyelids