6 important things to remember when you're new to contact lenses

• Getting a prescription
• Using your prescription
• Wearing patterns
• How to apply your contacts
• During the day
• Before bed

Once you’ve got your prescription, you can come online and order your lenses. For contact lenses for short and long-sightedness you should only need 3 things:

1. Power: This is the level of vision correction you need to see clearly
2. Base curve: The measurement of your eye’s natural curvature so that the lenses sit securely on your eye. This is usually set by the manufacturer but there may be more than one choice.
3. Diameter: How wide the contact lenses should be

If you’ve ever been told by an optician that you have astigmatism, you’ll need a different type of contact lens. Toric lenses are shaped to fit eyes with astigmatism comfortably and securely. With a toric lens prescription you’ll need to check two extra measurements:

1. Cylinder: A number in measures of 0.25, this is the extra amount of vision correction needed to treat astigmatism.
2. Axis: This is a number between 0 and 180 that tells you what angle your correction needs to be.

Just like with regular lenses, you can have different prescriptions for each eye and even one eye with astigmatism and one without. All toric lenses have the words ‘for astigmatism’ or ‘toric’ in the name so if you do have only one eye with astigmatism, use a toric lens for one eye and use the same brand of regular lenses for the other.

If you’ve got presbyopia and have been struggling with reading things close-up recently or use reading glasses, you might want to try multifocal contact lenses. These provide clear vision at all distances in just one lens, so you can always enjoy clear sight. On top of power, diameter and base curve, your prescription will also include:

1. Addition: The amount of correction needed for near sight.
2. Dominant eye: Your dominant eye will be labelled with a 'D'.

For more on reading your prescription, click here.

If you’re wearing daily lenses all you need to do is throw them away before you go to sleep. If you have monthlies or 2 weekly lenses then you’re going to need to give them a quick clean with solution.

1. Wash your hands with soap and water
2. Use fresh solution and rub your lenses clean
3. Rinse them off with solution
4. Store your lenses in a contact lens case filled with fresh solution

Soon enough, this will all be second nature to you and you can enjoy the benefits of wearing contact lenses, whether it’s every day, a couple times a week or once a month!

• Our range of contact lenses
• How to read your prescription
• How to put in your contact lenses