Looking After My Ocular Prosthesis:

Now that you’ve received your eye prosthesis there are a few things worth mentioning. We have taken every care to ensure you receive a product that is well cured so that it does not cause un-necessary ill effects.

If your eye has been surgically removed, then you may sleep with the eye prosthesis in. Research indicates, wherever possible, it is better to have it in overnight unless you have lids that don’t close at night.

If, however, you wear a scleral shell over the blinded eye, then you will need to sleep without the eye prosthesis in. This is important for good eye health. If you wear a Scleral Shell over your blinded eye then you will need to sleep without it. You will take it out at night and wash with a Hard Contact Lens Cleaning Solution such as Bausch & Lomb’s Boston Cleaner.

Eyes can be stored dry overnight, they don’t need to be in a solution.
Patients who wear a full eye prosthesis can take their eye prosthesis out daily and clean before reinserting. Such patients may sleep with their eye prosthesis in situ, in fact it is encouraged that you sleep with it in.
When re-inserting, use a product such as Bausch & Lomb Boston Simplus as it has wetting, protein removal and cleaning agents in it.

Please do not use any harsh chemicals on the eye prosthesis. Chemicals are absorbed into the material of the eye prosthesis as the eye prosthesis is porous; this will affect you detrimentally. Some chemicals can irreversibly damage the acrylic, causing the need to replace the prosthesis sooner than normally recommended.

Do not pour boiling water over your eye, you may think you are disinfecting it, but in reality, you are damaging the make-up of the material of the prosthetic eye. Your eye prosthesis does not want to change temperature too rapidly.

Your eye prosthesis will need a polish annually.
Please do not try this at home.
I have had patients simply rub their eye prosthesis on things like their jeans, which can cause the acrylic to burn or scratch. This polishing should be done professionally at the practice by the Ocularist.

If you suffer from dry eyes or excessive discharge, then please speak to Beryl about this, an appointment can be booked for you to discuss the options and possible relief.
About 40% of the population suffers from dry eyes, and you may already be under the care of your Ophthalmologist regarding this. Sometimes the eye prosthesis can exacerbate dry eye, and as it worsens, the body produces more discharge to combat the dry eyes, so dry eyes and excessive discharge may be linked.

When you visit your Optometrist or Ophthalmologist, then remove your eye prosthesis for them to assess your eye socket. It will assist the professional, not all of whom have had experience in the insertion and removal of an eye prosthesis.

If your eye is scratchy, take the scleral shell or ocular prosthesis out and assess the socket/eye. Rinse the socket / blind eye with an artificial tear and check the prosthetic shell/eye for residue.

Remind your doctor that medication that is contraindicated to contact lens wearers is also contraindicated to your eye prosthesis.

If you go to the doctor for an infection and the medication clears the problem up, but as soon as you go off the medication, you have the same infection type situation, then it would be better to see Beryl for an assessment as this could be related to your prosthetic eye wear.
A check-up is recommended at about three weeks after receiving your eye prosthesis.
We prefer patients to take the eye prosthesis home, get used to it, allow the socket time to accept it and then re-assess.

This, however, is sometimes impractical as some of our patients come from far off. Please book these sessions as and when you need them, remembering that there is a six month aftercare period on your eye prosthesis. This gives us six months of wearing the eye prosthesis to make changes as required.