Before touching your contact lenses always wash your hands, ensuring you rinse all the soap off and dry your hands on a lint free towel.Do not apply make-up until after your lenses are inserted. Also your finger nails should be kept short and smooth so that you don’t nick the contact lens or scratch your eye.

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A soft lens has a slightly cup-shaped profile on the end of a not overly wet finger when it is the correct way out and a saucer-shaped profile when inside out. Also if the lens is folded over on itself the edges will come together if the correct way out and away from each other if inside out. If a lens is inserted inside out it will not damage your eye but will fit much flatter and looser on the eye and irritate and eventually fall out.

If a lens does not feel right after insertion, take it back out, rinse with saline and re-insert.

Position an angled mirror in front of you, as this makes balancing the lens on your finger easier. If long sighted or you have difficulty focussing on close things, it is a good idea to use a magnifying mirror and put your contact lenses in, in a well lit area.

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Using the middle finger from each hand, hold the lids back by the lid margin near to the lashes.Position your head so that you can see the white of the eye above and below coloured part. This ensures that the gap between the lids is wide enough for the lens to fit through. There is no point in trying to put the lens in if this is not the case.

Remove the lens from the blister pack or storage case, shake excess fluid from it, check it is not inside out and place it on your index finger. Make sure your finger is not too wet or the lens will remain stuck to your finger when you try to insert it.Keeping your chin depressed, so that the coloured part of the eye remains central between the lids, and keeping both eyes open and the fellow eye looking straight at itself, slowly bring the index finger ever closer to the cornea, until you feel it touch your eye. Keep approaching your eye with your finger until you can feel your finger touch your eye through the contact lens.If this is the case and you have put it straight onto the cornea there is much less likelihood of a bubble being trapped underneath the lens and so it is less likely to get blinked out of the eye.

Keep hold of your eyelids at this stage, look down, then first let go of the lower lid and then the upper lid gently, before slowly looking straight ahead. Again this reduces the risk of the lens falling out of the eye before it has settled down properly.To remove the lens, once again hold the lids at the margin with the long middle fingers, place the index finger and thumb either side of the contact lens, push onto the lens, and gently pinch the lens from the eye. It is important to realise that you are only aiming to wrinkle the lens edges slightly to break the “suction” and allow easy removal.