Essential Tips for Contact Lens Care

It can be hard to know if you are doing the right things for your eyes.  Doing right by your eyes is clearly important, as we’ve all got just a pair to last us from the cradle to the grave.  This brief article should get you up to speed on the current medical advice for patients who wear contact lenses.

 

First of all, it is important to keep in mind that we did not evolve with contact lenses in the eyes.  The cornea (the clear lens on the very front of your eye) needs a lot of oxygen to stay healthy long term.  When patients sleep in contacts they are asking for trouble.  The incidence of serious complications from contact lens use is MUCH higher in patients who sleep in lenses.

 

In an ideal world, all of our patients would have their contacts out for 2-3 hours every day. This can be right before bed…just take your lenses out after dinner and you’ll be fine.  This is a great time to consider having a good pair of glasses, even if you primarily wear contacts.  You need to be able to see well with your contacts out.  What if you had to rush to the hospital at 3am? You might not have time to put in lenses.  CLOW = Contact Lens Over-Wear.  Please avoid CLOW to keep your risk LOW!!

 

Having good glasses available is also crucial in case you had an eye injury, pink eye, or ocular allergies that mean you could not wear contacts for a few weeks.  Think about it.  How much would your life and safety be impacted if contacts were your only way to see….and suddenly you could not wear contacts.  Back up glasses are essential.

 

What if you wear contacts all day every day, but never sleep in them?  Is that good enough?

Nope.  If you take your lenses off in the bathroom and walk straight to bed…without giving your eyes some time to get full force oxygen, you are still at increased risk for infections and other serious complications.  It turns out when you shut your eyes to got to sleep, the LIDS themselves are blocking the oxygen your corneas want so badly.  The 2-3 hours a day with contacts out while you are awake helps keep our patients safe.  All things in moderation.

 

Replacing contact lenses on time is also important.  The companies that make these lenses do extensive testing and pay millions to have results verified by the FDA for approval.  If it’s a monthly lens, it’s been tested and shown to be safe for up to a month of wear (30 days, taking them out at night…not 30x24 hours straight).  If it’s a daily lens, likewise, it’s been tested for one day of wear.  If you push the lens beyond that, you’re running your own unfunded experiment.  Do you really want to be the Guinea Pig for the nation?

 

If you choose to wear lenses that are not daily disposables, it’s also important to use a quality cleaning solution.  It’s never safe to reuse solution or to ‘top off’ the old solution with a squirt of fresh stuff.  Every morning the used solution should be dumped out and the lens case placed upside down to air-dry.  Spaces that are constantly wet tend to grow fungus, which can wreck havoc on your eyes.  More info to come on safe contact lens cleaning solutions and eye exam for contacts in a future blog post.