For contact and glasses wearers, going to the beach or other bodies of water during the summer can be a hassle. There are many precautions that need to be followed to keep your eyes protected, your glasses and contact lenses intact, and for you to be able to see while in public. Here are some tips that will help you be safe while enjoying the beautiful scenes at the beach.
Contact Lens Care
For contact lens wearers, there are some rules to be remembered.
- No matter the water type, don’t open your eyes under water. If you must do so, don’t do it unless you are wearing eyes goggles or other protective wear. Opening your eyes underwater while wearing contacts can dry out your lenses and cause you to lose them. It can also cause build up on your lenses that will make them hard to clean and cause your vision to be blurry.
- If you are in fresh water, you can clean your lenses within a few hours. For salt water or lakes, you will need to dispose of the lenses you wear because these bodies of water can contain living organisms that can infect your eyes and live on your contact lenses even after you’ve cleaned them.
- If you don’t enter the water, make sure you flush your contacts often and bring along eye drops made for refreshing eyes to keep them from drying out in the sun. You can also bring along sunglasses to help keep your eyes protected from bright sun.
- Bring along extra lenses and your glasses in case you lose your lenses and to have backup wear when you need to toss out your other lenses.
For glasses wearers
If you never got into wearing contact lenses, you can still go to the beach with your glasses. Remember that if you enter the water, you will have to remove them, otherwise, though, you can wear them on the beach or at any other water event.
- Be sure to bring eye drops for if your eyes become irritated while wearing the glasses in the sun.
- Buy sunglasses that fit around your regular glasses or buy lenses that darken in the sun to help protect your peepers form the bright rays.
- Keep your glasses on by attaching a cord (specifically made for glasses) to the legs of the glasses to keep them on your face. You can even buy something known as “nerd wax” to put on the bride of your nose to keep glasses from slipping when you start sweating in the sunshine.
- Bring along items to clean your glasses in the event they get dirty or smudged with sweat.
- Make sure you have a safe place to put the glasses when you do need to remove them.
Stephie Smith says
I got contacts about 6 months ago, so I’m still a little anxious with situations like going to the beach. I’ll follow your advice and bring spares or my glasses for backup as well as eye drops. Thanks for sharing, this gave me a bit more confidence about going to the beach in a few weeks with my family 🙂