WHEN CONTACT LENSES GO WRONG
If you are new to contacts or been wearing them for decades, you fully understand the added benefit of being able to go glasses-free for certain occasions. But we are here to warn you not to let that joy of contacts go so far that you forget to care for your eye health! We know it can seem harmless to sleep in your contacts one night or wear them into the pool or ocean during the summer. And maybe you got lucky, you got away with it once and nothing happened… so what’s the big deal about making this a regular thing?! Well, it is actually a HUGE deal! There are so many added risks and dangers to contact lens overuse and misuse. We know it is a fact that 50% of contact lens wearers do not actually listen to or abide by the doctor’s recommendations, whether that is wearing schedule, cleaning schedule or any other pearls of insight that our doctors provide. So PLEASE, LISTEN UP NOW as we go over the top three issues that we see with contact lens overuse each and every day.
Giant Papillary ConjuNctivitis
What in the world is that you may ask! It is actually when these large bumps appear under the eyelids. These bumps rub up against your eye and cause, itching, pain, irritation, and redness. It is commonly seen with contact lens overuse, but can also be seen with contact lens solution allergic reactions as well as other patients with allergies of any kind. These bumps can grow to be quite large, think of a pimple on your skin, and make you feel there is something in your eye when there is not. The solution: stop wearing contacts! Or avoid whatever is providing this allergic reaction. While this is usually a temporary solution and most patients can resume contact lenses after several weeks, it is certainly something that can be avoided by simply taking out your contacts each night and not wearing them for the recommended 12-16 hours maximum.
The bottom part that is highlighted by die is actually part of the cornea that is missing!
INFECTION OR ABRASIONS
I’m sure you’ve nodded off as we mentioned that you can get infections if you do not care for your eyes or contacts properly, but why is that? The contact lens is basically a piece of plastic that can add pressure to the front surface of the eye and prevents adequate air flow to the cornea, especially if ill-fitting or worn for excessive amounts of time. When sleeping, your eyelids actually do the same thing, but it is not for a long time and after a few hours of open eyes, they can recover easily from this each day. When you wear your contact lenses overnight, it creates added pressure, almost no oxygen flow and no recovery time since the cornea is not exposed to air when you wake up as the contact is still covering the eye. This causes a decrease in oxygen leading to edema of the cornea and often even loss of sensation on the surface of the eye. So what does this mean for you? Because your cornea has a lack of sensation, you could have something underneath your contact just scratching away, creating an abrasion or bacteria buildup, creating an infection, and you would have no idea! I usually equate it to a band-aid… it covers up what is going on underneath as you go about your day, but when you rip off that band-aid or contact lens, you are face-to-face with whatever might have been building up. Like a band-aid, you can also pull off pieces or chunks of the front surface of the cornea when you take off a dry, overworn contact lens! Yikes! Most of these scenarios call for no contact lens use for a couple weeks and a prescription drop, along with lots of artificial tears to promote quicker healing.
Moderate corneal ulcer
Uncontrolled, scary corneal ulcer!
Corneal Ulcer
A corneal ulcer is one of the worst things that we see from contact lens overuse, and unfortunately the most common. When some of the other detriments to contact lens overwear occur, our patients try to avoid us! With an ulcer, that is not an option. Corneal ulcers cause extreme pain, light sensitivity, and if large enough, you may even see the white color of the ulcer when you simply check out your eye in the mirror. Ulcers should be an immediate trip to see our doctors to get you on the path to recovery. If left untreated, ulcers can cause scarring, perforation, glaucoma, endophthalmitis, and vision loss. These things all sound scary, because they are! Do not try to wish an ulcer away. Instead, remove your contact lens and schedule and appointment as soon as possible.
None of this sounds like a good time, and I promise you that the pain and agony of the healing of some of these conditions is not for the faint of heart! So please, think about these risks the next time you are deciding whether to just go to sleep or take out your contact lenses. Because of the damage to the eye by any one of these conditions, we highly recommend (and sometimes force!) our patients and friends to switch to daily, single use contact lenses. When used correctly, meaning that the contact lenses are used once for no more than 12-14 hours then discarded, we have never seen an infection or ulcer in dailies. And even if you’ve been lucky enough to avoid these conditions, daily contact lenses are the healthiest option to preserve not only vision and health of the eyes, but to allow you to continue to wear contact lenses for years to come! (obviously, taking them out each night, not wearing them for years and years in a row… eek! haha) Feel free to ask our doctors at your next appointment if we can get you into daily contact lenses!
