Panic. It’s the first thing you feel when you go to pinch that little piece of silicone hydrogel out of your eye and your finger hits nothing but wet eyeball. You look in the mirror, pull your eyelid down, look up, look left, and realize it's gone. Honestly, the internal screaming is loud. You’ve probably heard those urban legends about contacts sliding behind your eye and getting stuck in your brain.
Take a breath. It is physically impossible for a contact lens to get lost behind your eye.
The anatomy of the human eye includes a thin, moist lining called the conjunctiva. This membrane folds back on itself to cover the white part of your eye and the inside of your eyelids. It creates a sealed pouch. There is literally no "back door" for a lens to slip through. If my contact get lost in my eye, it is trapped in that fold, stuck to the underside of the lid, or it simply fell out onto the bathroom floor without me noticing.
Why lenses pull a disappearing act
Usually, this happens because your eyes are bone-dry. If you've been staring at a computer screen for eight hours or took a nap without taking your lenses out, the hydration levels in the lens drop. It loses its grip on the cornea and migrates. Sometimes, a simple rub of the eye can fold the lens in half. A folded lens is a master of disguise. It’s tiny, translucent, and can tuck itself way up under the superior fornix (that’s the deep pocket under your upper eyelid).
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Dr. Glaucomflecken (the famous ophthalmologist on social media) and clinical experts at the American Academy of Ophthalmology often remind patients that the eye is incredibly sensitive. If something is in there, you’ll usually feel it. But here’s the kicker: sometimes the lens is gone, but your eye feels like it’s still there. This is called a corneal abrasion. You scratched the surface of your eye while hunting for the lens, and now your nerves are firing "foreign body sensation" signals even though the "foreign body" is currently sitting in your carpet fibers.
The step-by-step extraction (Without losing your mind)
First, wash your hands. Don't skip this. You don't want to trade a lost contact for a staph infection.
Once you’re clean, stand in front of a well-lit mirror. If you think the lens is under the upper lid, look down as far as you can while gently pulling the lid upward. You might see a tiny edge of the lens. If it’s under the bottom lid, look up and pull the skin down.
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Pro tip: Use saline. Do not try to grab a dry lens off a dry eyeball. It’s like trying to peel a sticker off wet paper; you’re just going to tear things. Flood your eye with sterile saline solution or rewetting drops. Blink a lot. Sometimes the sheer volume of fluid will float the lens back to the center of your eye where you can grab it.
If you see it but can't get it, try the "sliding" method. Press gently on the outside of your eyelid and try to massage the lens toward the inner corner of your eye (near your nose) or back onto the cornea.
What if it's actually stuck?
There are rare cases where a lens stays in the eye for a long time. You might have seen the 2017 report in the British Medical Journal about a woman who had 27 contact lenses discovered in her eye during a routine cataract surgery. She just thought she had dry eyes and old age. While that’s an extreme outlier, it proves that the eye can "hide" things in those folds for longer than you'd think.
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If your eye is turning beet red, if you have yellow or green discharge, or if your vision is getting blurry, stop digging. You’re doing more harm than good. At this point, you need an optometrist. They have a slit lamp—essentially a high-powered microscope—that lets them see every nook and cranny of your ocular surface. They can flip your eyelid (a weird sensation, but painless) and find the lens in five seconds.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Don't use tweezers. Seriously. People get desperate and try to use makeup tweezers to grab the edge of a lens. This is a fast track to the emergency room with a perforated globe.
- Don't use tap water. Tap water contains Acanthamoeba, a parasite that loves to eat corneal tissue. Only use sterile contact lens solution.
- Don't keep rubbing. If the lens is folded, rubbing might push it deeper into the conjunctival fold or cause a jagged edge to scratch your cornea.
Sometimes, the lens really did fall out. I’ve spent twenty minutes digging in my eye only to find the contact stuck to my shirt or dried up like a piece of parchment on the counter. If you’ve flushed your eye with saline, looked in every corner, and still don't see it, take a break. If the "scratchy" feeling goes away after an hour of rest, the lens is likely gone. If the pain gets worse, the lens (or a scratch) is still there.
How to prevent the "lost lens" panic
Modern daily disposables are great, but they are thinner and more prone to folding than the old-school thick lenses. If you find this happening a lot, talk to your doctor about the fit. A lens that is too "flat" for the curve of your eye will slide around like a hockey puck on ice.
- Keep rewetting drops on you at all times, especially if you work in an air-conditioned office.
- Never sleep in lenses unless they are specifically FDA-approved for extended wear (and even then, maybe don't).
- Replace your lenses on the actual schedule. Old lenses lose their shape and are more likely to dislodge.
Actionable steps for right now
- Stop rubbing. You are likely pushing it further into the pocket or scratching your cornea.
- Flood the eye. Use a significant amount of sterile saline. Blink rapidly for 30 seconds.
- The Eyelid Flip. If you're comfortable, gently grasp your upper lashes and pull the lid forward and down over the lower lashes, then look up. This can sometimes dislodge a trapped lens.
- Check the floor. Use a flashlight held at a low angle against the floor or counter; the light will catch the edge of a dried lens if it fell out.
- Call the Pro. If your eye is painful, light-sensitive, or red after 30 minutes of trying, go to an urgent care or your optometrist. It’s better to pay a co-pay than to deal with a corneal ulcer.
Most of the time, when my contact get lost in my eye, it’s just a temporary inconvenience caused by a bit of dryness and a bad angle. Stay calm, stay hydrated, and keep your fingers away from the "tools" drawer. Your eyes are resilient, but they don't handle DIY surgery well.
Next Steps:
If you’ve successfully removed the lens but your eye still feels "gritty," leave your contacts out for at least 24 hours. Use preservative-free artificial tears every few hours to soothe the surface. If the redness hasn't subsided by morning, schedule a quick check-up to rule out a minor scratch that might need antibiotic drops.