It’s a Friday night and you are ready to go out, but you have dropped your contact lens and are struggling to find it. Many people who wear contacts will experience this problem of what to do with a dropped contact lens on numerous occasions.

Instead of fretting, there is no need. As they are wet, they are at some point going to also slip off your finger when you are trying to put them in, but as long as you are careful you can easily retrieve your slippery lens and be on your way before you know it.

Unfortunately, a dropped contact lens can sometimes be difficult to find. After all, it is light and clear making it easy to blend in where it fell. However, some manufacturers have designed their contact lens so that if you do drop them you can easily find them because of the blue tint they have added to the lens.

When you do pick up your contact lens, make sure that you are especially careful. If it has been missing for a while it may be brittle and consequently picking it up could cause damage to the lens or even crack it. If that happens, you need to throw it out. An ideal way to pick the dropped contact lens is to slip a piece of paper underneath. This will provide an ideal carrier where you can then slide it off into the saline solution.

An additional way to pick up your contact lens is to wet your finger with the saline solution and then pick the contact up with your finger.

Make sure that you do not use sharp objects such as a pair of tweezers to help pick up your fallen contact. You may damage them this way if you do. Once the contact is in the saline solution, let them rest there for a few minutes. This way the contact can soak up the solution to revert to its hydrated state.

Once done your dropped contact lens will be ready to use again. However, before putting it back into your eye check over it to make sure that it has no cracks and is not broken. You may also want to put a towel over the sink or plug your sink up so that if you do drop your contact lens again it will not have the misfortune to fall down the sink when you are trying to put them in.

More information about what to do with a dropped contact lens, contact lens care, colored contacts and how to get contact lenses for free can be found at the Free Contact Lenses Guide.