Eye Red Problem With Contacts?

Question

Well... I have had contacts for about 6 months. It only happens around once every four days or so... but sometimes when I put in contacts, my eye turns a little bid red kinda like this except not as bad...

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/08/01/health/adam/19322.jpg

It ONLY happens for a few seconds, and I usually just wash out my my eye with contact solution after it goes away in a few seconds (Less than 5)

The reason I ask this is because I just took out my contacts and when I touched it and took it out, It turned red for a few seconds like usual, and I am just wondering the cause.

I only wear my contacts for 6-8 hours at a time.

What could be causing this, or what's wrong?

Answer 1

There are several things that it could be. One thing that bothers some people is if they have some sort of lotion or deodorant or something like that on their hands when they handle their lenses. Even hand soap that has lotion or fragrance. You might want to handle your senses before you use any other hygein products in the morning, or try changing your hand soap to something that is fragrance and lotion free.  Another patient that I saw in our office that our doctor treated was a pool service guy. It turned out that he was not usuing protective gloves to handle his chemicals when he was survicing his swimming pool customers.  The residue was on his hands and then consequently contaminating his lenses. So, we had to reitterate that he really needed protective gloves when he was working (he was supposed to be doing this anyway!) and that he really needed to wash his hands thouroughly and rinse them thouroughly between jobs and before he handled his lenses. Other than that, i am wondering if you are allergic to the preservatives in your contact lense solution. The preservatives do not hang out and hang on to your lenses like they did years ago, they dissapate fairly quickly, but sometimes they are around just long enough to cause you a little bit of grief. You could call your prescribing doctor and run it past one of the techs there and see what they think. I bet they might have some ideas I have not thought of. I hope I helped with something, if not I wish you luck becuase I know it is annoying!