Imagine using contact lenses is like a football match. (So be it.) Your contacts will naturally play the role of quarterback. Your contact lens case, on the other hand, is more like a plumber: a critical part of the whole operation that is sometimes unfairly neglected.
Proper use of everything related to contact lenses, including contact lens cases, is essential for good eye health. According to the Mayo Clinic, wearing contact lenses can increase your risk of problems like dry eye syndrome. Dry eye occurs when your eyes don’t produce enough tears, or the tears they produce don’t match the level of hydration, and its symptoms are just plain annoying, including dryness (uh), tingling, burning, pain, and more.
In addition to an increased risk of dry eyes from wearing contact lenses, failure to clean, store, or dispose of contact lens cases properly can lead to other problems, such as various infections, says Vivian Shibayama, OD, optometrist, UCLA Health. MYSELF.
To help you avoid this, here are some contact lens case bugs you may not be aware of that can be detrimental to the health of your eyes.
How To Put In Contacts
If you want to get a gold medal for how you use your contact lenses, you must keep everything related to your lenses as clean as possible. That’s why it’s important to wash your hands with soap and water before touching contact lens cases, says Alyssa Fleming, an optometrist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
If you don’t wash your hands before touching a phone case, the germs from your hands can settle on or inside the case, which can make it easier for pathogens to enter your eyes and cause irritation or infection, Dr. Fleming says. For example, you can get conjunctivitis (also known as conjunctivitis), which occurs when something, such as bacteria, viruses, or allergens, inflames or infects your conjunctiva (the membrane that covers your eyelids and the whites of your eyes). According to the Mayo Clinic. This can lead to various unwanted symptoms, such as redness, itching, a strange gritty feeling, discharge, or watery eyes, explains the Mayo Clinic.
Obviously, you want to avoid this at all costs, so be sure to wash your hands before touching the case. Of course, this may not help much if your case is bad in itself, which brings us to our next point.
To be completely honest, is there any unrecognizable hard deposits on the contact lens case? Or even a small amount of seemingly harmless lint? Yes, it sucks.
“Your contact lens case is like a little petri dish,” says Jennifer Vogt, an assistant professor at Ohio State University’s College of Optometry. “Bacteria can get in there and multiply, and if you don’t regularly clean your contact lens case when you wear your contacts at night, the bacteria can get back into your contact lenses.”
There is no official word on how often you should clean your contact lens cases, but the American Optometrist Association (AOA) recommends following the solution manufacturer’s recommendations. Many recommend cleaning the case after each use. According to the AOA, this means pouring out the old solution, rinsing the case with fresh solution, wiping it down with a clean paper towel, then removing the lid and air-drying.
When you think about how to clean something, your first impulse might be to splash water on it. This is usually a good move, but not for a contact lens case.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), exposure to tap water can increase the risk of Acanthamoeba keratitis, a serious infection of the cornea that can lead to permanent vision loss. “This is a terrible and very serious infection,” Dr. Shibayama said.
Acanthamoeba keratitis is caused by a microbe that can ferment in tap water (including distilled water), stick to contact lenses, and cause infection. If this happens, you may experience eye pain, redness, blurred vision, a feeling of something in the eye, sensitivity to light, and excessive tearing.
Because contact lens misuse is a big risk factor for developing Acanthamoeba keratitis, it’s important to make sure that tap water doesn’t come into contact with anything associated with your lenses, including your lens case.
If you haven’t lost your contact lens case, buying a new contact lens case is probably not your top priority. However, AOA recommends buying a new case every three months, even if your current case looks flawless.
Bacteria and other microbes can create a substance called a biofilm that can form in a lens case and help the bacteria “hide” the disinfectant in the contact lens solution, the AOA said. It’s… actually quite funny, because who doesn’t like scientific shenanigans, but the point is, it might be bad news for your eyes. You can’t actually see this biofilm, so it’s best to replace the hull every three months, whether it needs it or not.
How To Put In Contacts
When filled with liquid, your contact lens case will be warm and damp. This is the environment in which microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi usually thrive. As you add more solution to your case, you’re pushing whatever might be growing in it deeper into the ground, where it can still affect your contact lenses, Dr. Vogt says. “You just create an environment, put more of this harmful substance in it, put your lens in it, and put it in your eye,” Dr. Vogt said.
Don’t do this, but be sure to throw the old solution out of the case each time and rinse it out before finally adding new solution to store your contacts.
Putting some lenses that are barely hanging in a contact lens case with fresh solution should help revive them, right? Unfortunately no. “Contact lens solution does not extend the recommended contact lens wearing period,” said Dr. Fleming.
For the record, you must throw away contact lenses on time, whether you actually wear them or not. For example, if you removed your contact lenses for 30 days but ended up wearing glasses for 15 days, you should still remove your contact lenses 30 days after you started using them, Dr. Vogt says.
Seems nice to be next to the bathroom sink, right? Especially when you’re actually going to start cleaning your case as often as possible? The problem, according to the AOA, is that the risk of contracting a case is highest when you place it in a humid environment, such as a bathroom.
Not only that, your toilet creates a so-called “toilet plume” that sprays pathogens like E. coli and salmonella into the air when you flush, says the AOA. If your case is outdoors, these tiny water droplets can get on it, easily transferring them to your eyes.
This does not mean that you will definitely get some serious eye infection just because your contact lens case was left in the bathroom. After all, many people have been doing this for years without any problems, and you may be one of them. But if you’re worried and want to keep your eyes as safe as possible, store your contact lens cases in a clean, low-humidity area while you sanitize your lenses.
Many eye problems share similar symptoms, whether it’s dry eyes, conjunctivitis, acanthamoeba keratitis, or another condition. Instead of trying to diagnose and fix the problem yourself, see a doctor. This way you will know exactly what you are dealing with and will be able to find the fastest way to heal.
SELF does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. No information published on this site or under this brand is intended to replace medical advice and you should not take any action without consulting a healthcare professional.
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Post time: Jul-29-2023
