5 Things Your Contact Lenses Wish They Could Tell You
Contact lenses give you good peripheral vision, plus they are effortless to use and convenient to wear. To relish the freedom and convenience that contact lenses provide, you need to practice proper care and maintenance related to cleaning and using contact lenses.
1 This survey, conducted by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), states that almost all respondents admitted to at least one eye lens behaviour that's associated with eye infections.
The reality is that eye infections and complications can be reduced if you follow the instructions and recommendations given by your eye care practitioner. If your contact lenses could speak, they'd want you to know these five things.
Avoid Wearing Us For An Extended Time
It is normal for most people to try and get one added day out of their daily disposable lenses, or an extra week out of their monthly lenses. But using contact lenses past their recommended usage period can have adverse side effects. Extending the usage period of contact lenses gives rise to severe complications and infections.
Overusing contact lenses beyond their recommended period causes the contact lenses to degrade and 2 lead to protein/lipid build up in the eye. This can lead to severe allergic reactions and also reduces the oxygen permeability of the contact lens. 3The cornea needs a healthy level of oxygen, and in case it does not receive an adequate amount of oxygen, it can potentially lead to infections and other visual damages.
Diligently follow the recommendations and instructions provided by your eye care practitioner when using contact lenses.
Don't Mix Us With Water
Water should not encounter your contact lenses or lens care products. 4Using water can change the shape of the contact lens, swell them up, and can stick them to your cornea. This can lead to eye irritation and make it more susceptible to infections. For the same reason, one should never clean or store their contact lenses in water.
Similarly, one should avoid exposing their contact lenses to water when swimming or showering. Even a little bit of water can expose your contact lenses to micro-organisms that are present in the water. Both fresh and tap water have amoeba that can fester under the contact lens and cause serious eye infections.
Why use water when there are different types of cleaning and disinfecting solutions available? Just pick the appropriate contact lens solution and keep your contact lenses safe to use.
Please Clean And Disinfect Us Properly
Cleaning contact lenses correctly reduces the risk of irritation, bacterial infestation, and inflammation 5. The best way to keep your reusable contact lenses free of germs is to rub them with your fingers (after properly washing and drying your hands) while using a cleaning and disinfecting contact lens solution that is recommended by your optometrist. This rubbing of contact lenses with the lens care solutions thoroughly helps remove microbes and other residual deposits. Once the rubbing is done, rinse them with the disinfecting solution and store them for minimum 4 hours
An easy way to sidestep the cleaning and disinfecting process is to opt for daily disposable lenses that don't need cleaning because one can just discard them after each use. The next day, a fresh pair of daily disposable lenses can be used.
Make Sure You Keep Our Storage Case Clean As Well
The contact lens storage case needs to be as clean as your contact lenses. Failing to keep the storage case clean leads to the formation of biofilm (bacterial layer) that can build up and infect your contact lenses leading to complications and eye infections. 6According to this research, cleaning the contact lenses and its storage case reduces the risk of eye infections and complications in half.
The best way to keep the storage case clean is to rub the insides of the case with clean fingers, then to rinse it off with contact lens care solution and dry it with a clean tissue, keep it upside down when not in use. It is also crucial to replace the contact lens storage case every three months.
If You Are Going To Bed, Don't Forget To Remove Us!
Going to sleep with your contact lenses is extremely risky as it increases the chance of corneal infections, also known as
7 microbial keratitis. This is a bacterial infection that causes pain, redness, and blurred vision.
The cornea needs oxygen to breathe, and a reduction in oxygen flow leads to serious eye infections. So, always remove your contact lenses before you go to sleep.
Follow Instructions To Keep Your Eyes Healthy
Our eyes are sensitive and also one of the most important organs of our body. Hence, it is our responsibility to make sure that our eyes stay healthy. While using contact lenses, keep these tips in mind and go for regular eye examinations (at least once a year). Start your journey towards healthier eyes and a happier life with Bausch+Lomb, a global leader in contact lenses innovation and technology.
Sources:
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6432a2.htm#Tab2
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/contactlenses/water-and-contact-lenses.html
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22521083
[4] https://www.cdc.gov/contactlenses/bacterial-keratitis.html
[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8725015
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