Soft contacts: tools of the devil.

I've been wearing soft contacts forever (okay, 10+ years) and recently switched brands to a "thinner" soft contact that supposedly lets in a lot more air. Compared to my last set of soft lenses, my eyes feel consistently drier in these and I've found it's much, much, much harder to take them out. (In my old pair, I just kind of touched the lens and pulled it to the side of my eye and it popped out.) Dry eyes plus very thin and dry contacts means you end up with lenses that kind of glue to your eye and don't have the stiffness to pop out easily. So: if you're feeling like your eyes are really dry all the time AND having a hard time pulling them out, it's probably a sign that your lenses aren't wet enough to come out easily. In the short term, try using re-wetting drops 30 seconds before you pull them out. In the longer term, talk to your ophthamologist about sampling a different brand of lens if at all possible.

I get the "push it away from the iris to break suction" part but I don't get the pinching thing, I guess. Are you pressing the tips of your fingers INTO your eyeball? How else do you get traction? Should I be exerting pressure onto my eye and then bringing my fingers together? I certainly can't get traction on the lens itself without doing that... You don't need to put much pressure on your eye, if at all. Would it help to think of it less as pinching and more like rolling your fingertips together? Try this: with your right hand, extend the thumb and middle finger and make them almost touch. Then, moving them closer, sort of roll the pad of your middle finger as it touches your thumb. I use the back of my thumbnail to pull down my lower eyelid, then do the rolling thing with my middle finger. The middle finger first touches the contact, and then drags down the contact as you roll. The contact is thus trapped between the two fingers and you can pinch it at that point. As others have said, that "pinch" is more of a squeeze, and you kind of pull the contact away from your eye as you do it. (Putting down a towel helps as you learn this, as you may drop the contact as you're learning.) As for the Saran Wrap effect: try Acuvue Oasys. They're the most breathable soft contact I've tried. They're miles better than others.

Also, get the ones that you only need to do it once a week or even less frequently. I'd advise thinking carefully about these, as corneal infections are no joke, and you run a greater risk of infection with extended-wear lenses.

This is what I do with my 2-week Acuvue Oaysis soft contacts: = 1. I make sure my eyes are dry, dry, dry. Extra dry if I've just put in a new pair because it's hard to get them out because they haven't built up any gunk on them. I dry out my eye by holding it open and waving air into it (which doesn't make me look weird at all, let me tell you). When my eye feels sufficiently dry, I: 2. Take my pointer finger, put it lightly in the middle of the contact and drag the contact to the outside corner of my eye. Keeping my pointer on the contact, I reach up with my thumb and pinch with the thumb while holding the contact steady with my pointer. The contact flips up and I'm able to take them out. Really making sure my eyes are dry when I do this the trick. Trying the pinch trick when my eyes are even a little wet results in (nearly literally) clawing my eyes out. Good luck! I know how frustrating learning new contact can be.

First I kind of push it to the side to sort of dislodge it away from my iris because it nestles in there and gets itself all comfortably shrinkwrapped to my eye. Pushing it to the side seems to break some kind of suction. This step is especially important if my eyes are dry or if I've slept in them (bad idea). And then I pinch.

I don't think it's been suggested here, but I have success just lightly putting the pad of my fingertip (never the nail! ouch!) right into the center of my contact, looking straight ahead into the mirror, and sliding the contact down and out of my eye. Also, I am super nearsighted (like a -8.00) and can still always see what I'm doing after one contact is out, but I get all super close to the mirror. Like, my face is six inches away from the mirror when I'm taking my lenses out. A full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door might help if you're having trouble seeing what you're doing.

Talk to your optometrist about how difficult it is to remove the contacts. Sometimes, it has to do with the curve of the contact lens and the shape of your eyeball. The last time that I needed new contacts, the doc gave me a couple of different brands to try. I mentioned that one brand was particularly difficult to remove (like it was vacuum-sealed to my eyeball), and he said it might have had to do with the curve of the lens and not fitting my eye properly. Also, there may be a different brand that's a bit thicker and not so saran-wrappy. I've been wearing soft contact lenses for 15 years now and usually have no problems. I'd agree with the answerers above where a dry finger works better (more traction), thinner contacts are harder to get out (less stiffness), and dry eyes increase the suction.

When my contacts feel particularly glued to my eyes (after I've worn them too long, or gotten lots of water splashed in my face), I find closing my eye and pinching them through the eyelid helps to loosen them. Then, like many of the other posters, I pull my lower lid down with my ring finger, and use thumb and pointer to pinch the contact off.

How long are your nails? I've bitten mine forever and have never had trouble removing my contacts, but I got acrylic tips on a whim this fall and COULD NOT DO IT any more. It turns out I use the actual tippy-tip of my finger for the pinching, not the underside of the top part of my finger (if that makes sense). So maybe clip your nails short for a while, if you usually wear them long?