Do You Wear Contacts? 2 Problems You May Have If You Do Not Take Care Of Them

9 September 2016

Jaime Allen

Contact lenses are convenient and you can go through your life without having any problems with your eyes from wearing them. This is, however, only if you take care of the lenses often enough and properly. Below are two problems that may happen to you if you do not clean your lenses often enough or clean them in the wrong way.

Protein and Lipid Deposits

When cleaning the lenses, you remove lipid and protein deposits. If these deposits are left on your lenses and you wear them, this can reduce the wettability of the lenses, causing dry eyes, and cause disruption of your tears, which is what keeps your eyes moist. Both of these things will negatively affect your vision and comfort.

Once the deposits get on the lenses they will continue building up if the lenses are not cleaned. Over time, the protein can coat the lens, and the protein coating may be difficult to remove.

The age of your contacts also plays a role in this. If you are still wearing old lenses past the time your eye doctor recommended, you need to replace them with new lenses immediately to help prevent these problems.

If you wear your lenses 24 hours a day, it is even more important that you replace them on schedule. Use a calendar to schedule your replacements so you will always be on time.

Eye Infections

When you clean your contact lenses, you use a peroxide based cleanser. The peroxide in the cleanser is what disinfects your contacts. The cleanser is also gentle enough so it does not harm your eyes.

A very dangerous eye infection you may get from not cleaning your lenses is keratitis. This infection affects the cornea, and may be very difficult to treat. In very severe cases, the keratitis infection can cause corneal scarring, which may require a cornea transplant. If you do get this infection in your eyes, it can start causing these problems very quickly.

If you get an eye infection, your will have blurry vision, pain in your eyes, discharge from your eyes, and have unusual redness. If you have any of these symptoms, do not wear your contacts and see your eye doctor immediately.

Make sure you also clean the lens case each time you clean your lenses. If you have any questions on how to take care of your lenses, talk with an eye doctor, like one at Spectacle Shoppe, Inc.

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