Contact lens houston,Eye health
As Contact Lens Health Week comes to an end, we wanted to share some personal stories from one of our surgeons.
Dr. Bennett Walton shared with us that he has had several patients come in for “a contact lens lost in the eye”.
What I’ve found when these patients come in:
– Some patients have truly lost their lens back into the fornix above the upper lid (no, it cannot go into the brain – see our blog about this!)
– Some patients who think they have slept in their contacts and awaken blurry and uncomfortable, when in fact they have no contact present and only a contact lens-related inflammation or infection present.
– Some patients who have been digging at their eyes so hard to get a lens out that they give themselves painful corneal abrasions. Then, I find no lens present at all.
Have any of these situations happened to you?
The CDC highlighted the dangers of sleeping in contact lens in an article entitled “Corneal Infections Associated with Sleeping in Contact Lenses-Six Cases, United States, 2016-2018” in its Aug. 17 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). We covered this danger on our blog several years ago with a funny personal story entitled: WHY YOU SHOULD NOT SLEEP IN YOUR CONTACTS.
“Approximately one-third of contact lens wearers report sleeping or napping in their lenses,” the report continues. “Sleeping in lenses, whether inadvertently, occasionally, or as part of a prescribed wearing schedule, increases the risk for contact lens-related eye infections six- to eight-fold.”
“Among the many behaviors that increase the risk for a contact lens-related corneal infection, sleeping in contact lenses is one of the riskiest and one of the most commonly reported behaviors among adolescent and adult contact lens wearers,” the MMWR reports.
The following steps are recommended by the American Optometric Association for all contact lens wearers:
- Store your lenses in the proper lens storage case and replace the case at least every 3 months.
- Use only fresh solution to clean and store contact lenses. Never reuse old solution.
- Always wash and thoroughly dry your hands before handling contact lenses.
- Carefully and regularly clean your contact lenses as directed by your doctor of optometry. How do you do this? Rub the contact lenses with your fingers and rinsing them thoroughly before soaking the lenses overnight in multipurpose solution that completely covers each lens.
- Use only products recommended by a doctor of optometry to clean and disinfect lenses.
- Always follow the recommended contact lens replacement schedule doctors prescribe.
- Remove your contact lenses before swimming or getting in a hot tub.
- Never use expired prescriptions or stock up on lenses right before the prescription is about to expire.
- See your eye doctor for a regularly scheduled contact lens and eye examination.
And of course, please call our office at 713-626-5544 if you feel any discomfort with your lenses or think you may have lost a lens in your eye. We offer a lot of options for you other than contact lenses, so if you are looking for laser vision correction because you don’t want to deal with all of the above, we don’t blame you, and we can absolutely help you!
#contactlenshealthweek #contactlenssafety
