A contact lens cannot get lost behind your eye. It is anatomically impossible. The conjunctiva folds back from your eyelids onto the eyeball and forms a closed pocket. Knowing that takes most of the panic out of the next ten minutes.
Almost always, it is dry — not stuck
A soft lens that has dehydrated grips the cornea and stops sliding. Pulling at it in that state peels surface cells off with it.
So the first move is never to pull. It is to rehydrate:
- Wash and dry your hands
- Put in several drops of rewetting solution or sterile saline — more than feels necessary
- Close the eye and blink gently a few times
- Wait 30 to 60 seconds
- Try again
Repeat this two or three times before trying anything else. It resolves the large majority of cases.
If the lens has moved off-centre
Find it first. Look in a mirror in good light, then move your eye away from where you think the lens is — if it has gone up under the top lid, look down. That brings the edge into view.
Once you can see it, slide it gently back onto the cornea with a fingertip through a closed or partly closed lid, then remove it normally. Do not try to pinch it off the white of the eye; the conjunctiva there is loose and you will pinch tissue rather than lens.
If it is under the upper lid
This is the usual hiding place and the reason people conclude the lens has vanished.
Try this: look down. Take hold of your upper lashes, pull the lid out and down over the lower lid, then let go. The lower lid margin often sweeps the lens down into view as the upper lid rolls back.
If that does not work, close the eye and massage the upper lid gently towards your nose, then look in the mirror again.
For rigid and scleral lenses
A rigid lens does not fold, so the technique differs. Pull the outer corner of the lid towards your temple and blink firmly — the lid margin catches the edge and pops the lens out into your other hand.
A scleral lens that has suctioned down needs its seal broken first: press the lower lid margin up under the bottom edge of the lens to let air in, then use the removal plunger on the lower third of the lens, never the centre.
What not to do
- Do not use tweezers or any tool not designed for lens removal
- Do not use your fingernails — use the pads of your fingers
- Do not rub hard or keep grabbing at a dry lens
- Do not rinse with tap water — see why
- Do not keep going for an hour. If twenty minutes of the steps above has not worked, stop.
The sensation that outlasts the lens
Very common: you get the lens out and it still feels like it is there.
That is usually a small corneal abrasion, which fires the same nerves a foreign body does. If both lenses are definitely out and the feeling persists more than about two hours, call your optometrist rather than searching again. See the foreign body sensation.
When to stop and get help
Call the same day if:
- You genuinely cannot get it out after a reasonable attempt
- Pain is increasing rather than settling
- Vision has dropped
- Light hurts
- The eye is very red — see red eye with contacts
Removal by a clinician is quick and painless. It is not an embarrassing call to make.
Afterwards
Give that eye a rest — wear glasses for the remainder of the day. Start with a fresh lens next time, and if the lens came out damaged, check the other one too before wearing it. See correct removal technique and a torn lens.
If lenses stick regularly, that is a fit or dryness pattern worth raising rather than living with.
General information, not a substitute for clinical care. Reviewed by Dr. Teresita Bollar, OD.
