So, first off, I use Clear Care. For those who don’t know what it is, it’s a hydrogen peroxide based contact lens solution. You put your lenses in the solution with a platinum disk overnight. Throughout the night, the hydrogen peroxide does a great job cleaning the lenses and the platinum does something magical to the hydrogen peroxide to neutralize it so it doesn’t turn your eyes into little balls of fire in the morning. That reaction typically looks something like this random youtube clip I found of someone else’s clear care bottle.
After you get it started it typically takes about a minute to start bubbling like that. Today, I noticed that mine had started bubbling, nay, frothing after just a few seconds. Faster then the amount of time it took for me to grab my glasses and put them on. It seemed odd that there was a bit of foam at the top so I kept an eye on it for a while. It normally looks exactly like it does in the linked video, but mine looked like this and then like this and then at exactly the right time I put my phone in video mode and got this. My contacts should not be nearly this interesting to watch.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
I can’t think of anything I would have gotten on my hands (or eyes) today that’s at all out of the ordinary. I even pulled the contacts out when it first started thinking maybe there was soap on something, rinsed everything with Opti-free contact solution, refilled it with fresh Clear Care solution and it happened again.
I also wondered if maybe this has something to do with it being a new case and a new bottle, but it’s the third night I’ve used it and surely I would have noticed the mess it made unless it all dries overnight.
I’m going to google around, but at this point I’m still planning to put my lenses back in in the morning.
The only thing I’ve found so far is that rinsing the case out with the OptiFree probably made the foaming worse. But that doesn’t really tell me why it happened in the first place, that was just from someone who was told not to rinse her contacts/case before use to prevent foaming and I’ve never done that.
It is the new case. Every time I switch cases I have that issue for the first week or so. Be sure to rinse extra thoroughly with saline in the morning. I’ve found that when it over foams it sometimes leaves some sort of stinging residue.
Strange. I’ve never had it happen and since I’m one to be easily amused, I sometimes watch it fizz for a minute…especially when I switch cases since it’s extra fizzy then. But I’ve never seen it get foamy.
I use Clear Care and have never seen it foamy. I would suspect something left in the case from the manufacturing process; wash it really well and see if that cures it.
I think this must be it. There must have been a chemical reaction between any traces of OptiFree left in the case and the Clear Care. I would get a new case now and toss the used one, and next time rinse the case with simple saline solution.
Edit: Sorry, I misread and thought you had rinsed with OptiFree before this all started. I’d still get a new case, though.
This happens to me often. I haven’t bothered to track if it corresponds to the new bottle/case of Clear Care, but now I suppose I should. I’ve tried everything, from mixed solutions of the Clear Care solution and saline to putting the case in my dishwasher (in the off chance there was some contaminant on it) and everything you can imagine in between. If I remember correctly, the foaming action has happened randomly in the past, with both older and newer cases and bottles of Clear Care. Any updates on your issue?
Has anyone found a solution to this yet? I have seen this reaction happen several times and each time it’s quite irritating because my contacts aren’t wearable if it’s happened. I once called Alcon and they told me that they had never received a call about something like this before, which I found to be pretty surprising. They even had me send in the case that was reacting this way so they could test it, and they responded afterwards to say that they found nothing abnormal with it.
They told me over the phone that anything other than Clear Care coming into contact with the case can have this effect. They said that maybe it was caused by the soaps that I was using to wash my hands, but the thing is that the over foaming doesn’t seem related to which soaps I use, as sometimes it happens sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes when it over foams, I have to let the entire case dry off first and then when I use it again the problem is avoided, but it often happens again the next night and I have to repeat allowing it to dry, etc…
I haven’t noticed that but two nights ago I used the clear care and the next morning I had some stinging when I put my contacts in. It went away in a minute or so but my first thought was that they have made the catalyzer in the container less effective to encourage you to buy more befoire the bottle is done.
You used to get two containers per two bottle pack, now its only one container.
Data point: since starting using Clean Care, I have been wearing my biweekly contacts for between 6-8 weeks at a time with no noticeable degradation at all. In fact the only thing that makes me switch is usually I end up tearing a contact. Ive been doing that for 5 years now.
It’s interesting that there are recent reports on this thread. Just happened here, too: The solution did not neutralize after 11 hours. There was a lot more bubbling than usual when lenses were initially placed in the case - both solution and case were new. The lenses, which are GP, burned and stung when put in. Not as bad as they would have been if it were fresh solution, but still it was pretty bad. Any ideas what might be happening?
Holy Mount Vesuvius! Bubbles flooded the counter! The contacts were brand new, only one days use. I’m worried about how they’ll feel tomorrow. Anytime my contacts bother me I have a tendency to assume it’s an invisible cottony cat hair. But this reaction is ridiculous! I haven’t seen bubbles like like this even on a wound!
HELP
I used to use that crap about 15 years ago. Too many instances of the catalyst disk wearing out and not completely neutralizing the solution and burning the shit out of my eyes. I switched to just using multi-purpose solution and throwing out my contacts every two weeks. Better system for me.
If the platinum is worn out (washed away) then there are few bubbled and its still bubbling by the time you go to use the lens.
The only thing you can do to make the bubbling faster is to have some sort of substance contaminating the peroxide to make it bubble faster. The bubbles will have stopped by morning … you will know there is no peroxide left when the bubbling has stopped.
The Opti-free saline should be merely saline water… but any sort of detergent might make the peroxide bubble quicker, and perhaps convert the detergent to be something else.
I wear Acuvue Oasys torics and have been using Opti-Free for 10 years. For the last two months I’ve been battling allergic conjunctivitis in my left eye. Typical white, stringy goo and itchy eye. New lens will be fine for maybe two days and then it starts moving up a couple of millimeters; enough to give me blurry vision, almost as bad as not wearing contacts at all. Using Zaditor helps a little bit but condition persists.
On the advice of my doctor, I started using Clear Care two days ago. The first night the bubbling was normal. No foam was seen. This is with an old pair of contacts but new lens case and fresh platinum disc. After the overnight soaking, I took out the lens holder and decided to play it safe and rinse the holder and lenses with the Opti-Free solution before putting the contacts in. Last night when I put the holder into the H2O2, it started foaming. Enough so it started pouring out the holes at the top of the container. My guess is that there was still some Opti-Free on the holder and it reacted with the peroxide. Soak time last night was about 12 hours; double the recommended six so the H2O2 should have been neutralized but when I put the contacts in this morning there was a very slight burning sensation in the right eye. Maybe the Opti-Free inhibited some of the conversion? Anyway, this morning instead of rinsing the lenses with Opti-Free while they were still in the holder, I took them out and rinsed them in my palm. Hopefully this will prevent foaming tonight.
I used the AOSept system when it first came out many years ago, basically the same thing we’re talking about now, and I don’t remember any bubbling over, or foaming out the top of the case back then. So I was quite surprised when there was a puddle of liquid surrounding the case on my bathroom counter. I thought it was a defect with the case since I was using the same method and solutions I did in the past (fresh stock, not 20 year old crap). So I went out looking for a new case. Seems that they only come with the kits now when buying retail. So instead, I bought a new kit of the same type of system, except this was the “Peroxi Clear” system from Bausch & Lomb. Same stuff really, but a different type of case. The cap has many openings instead of just the one tiny hole. So just to see if it would do the same thing, I filled the case as instructed, with their own solution, and put the basket/cap on and watched it bubble up. Now there were no lenses in there, and no other cleaning solutions; just what came in their kit, and that sucker foamed up like a rabid dog. Within minutes, solution was spilling onto the bathroom counter. Now in the old days of AOSept, I’m pretty sure it never foamed over, but I also believe you were suppose to let the case set overnight, or 8 hours minimum, before the lenses were safe to put back in your eyes. But in the case of Clear Care, which is touting use after 6 hours; and Peroxi Clear, which is saying usable after only 4 hours, I’m thinking they must be using a “hotter” platinum disk or a stronger solution in order to beat the competition on “speed til use”. It’s a theory, but it makes sense.
Now the thing that really bothers me though is not that it makes a little mess on the bathroom counter; it’s that so much of the solution boils out that only the bottom half of the lens is submerged in solution when the morning comes. I usually leave my lenses out for at least a day, just to give my eyes a break, so after the initial foam up is through, I’ll top it off to the fill line again and let it do it’s thing all over. But since half the solution in there is already neutralized, it doesn’t boil out so much, and the lenses stay submerged.
There’s solutions around the problem, but it’s just an unnecessary pain in the butt.
Glad to hear I’m not the only one having this issue. I’ve been using Clear Care for quite a while now, and have only recently been having this problem. I’m assuming they changed their formula, as that seems to be the only possible variable.
My conspiracy theory is it’s a ploy to make us buy more of the stuff, but really, it’s just a big PITA.
Too many times I’d wake up in the morning with a big puddle of the stuff on my bath counter, the container would be nearly empty, and the lenses would sting like a SOB when I put them in.
So now, I have to stay up long enough the night before to do “two stages,” ie, wait for them to foam up and overflow all over the counter, rinse the container out, and then do it over again.
Do you use pure saline or some other thing for the non-disinfectant part of your regimen? I’ve found that if I use some of the multi-purpose solution for travel, my ClearCare foams up like crazy when I get back. I make sure to toss lenses after travel that uses multi-purpose stuff now.
Nah, my typical mo is just, in the morning after I take 'em out of the container is to give 'em quick rinse with saline before I put 'em in. I wear 'em all day, rinse out the container w/Clear Care, give them a few rubs (doctor’s recommendation), rinse them again w/Clear Care, put 'em in the container, and watch it overflow all over the counter.
