MiraFlow Review

An online acquaintance of mine wrote a description of his experiences with MiraFlow, a contact lens cleaning solution that he prefers over Clear Care. At Lens101 Forum he writes:

Back in the good old days - the late 80s, when I first started wearing soft contacts - the standard routine for soft contacts was a three step process. Clean the lens, rinse it off with saline, and then disinfect. There was even a time when heat disinfection was the preferred approach, with cases that fit into small electronic heaters, although in a pinch, you could toss the case into a pot of boiling water. Saline took up significant
shelf space at drug stores, probably more than disinfecting solutions. You could even get saline in a pressurized can, which was nice because it was easy to get a powerful stream for rinsing. In addition to the above, once a week you would use an enzyme treatment to remove proteins that couldn't be removed with regular cleaners. The lenses, of course, were expected to last a full year. 

The cleaning solutions came in small bottles, since they only required a few drops per day. They varied in consistency, from being quite watery to being thicker - more the consistency of a dishwashing liquid such as Dawn (for sink washing, not electric dishwashers). Or imagine clear liquid hand soap watered down just enough so that it would easily go through a typical dropper bottle for eye care chemicals. 

MiraFlow was at the thicker end of the scale, and has always been labeled an extra-strength cleaner. I didn't like it as much as other cleaners then available, because its thickness made it more difficult to rinse off, although my eyes generated enough gunk to benefit from it. Then multi-purpose solutions came out, eliminating the need for a separate cleaner, followed by no-rub multi-purpose solutions. My optometrist, being a fan of peroxide disinfection, didn't much care for the multi-purpose solutions until Clear Care came out. But around the same time, the stand-alone cleaners disappeared from the market, with the main exception of MiraFlow.

MiraFlow, as far as I know, is still available. You may find it harder to find the saline solution that you'll need in addition. I don't know whether it's suitable for all contacts, and in particular, whether it's appropriate for silicone hydrogels. However, if you currently use a monthly replacement lens and find that it's less comfortable or clear after 3 weeks of use, or if you use a lens that's replaced less frequently, you might want to ask your optometrist whether using MiraFlow would help keep your contacts cleaner.