Contact
Lens 101: A Back-to-School Must for Teens
Did
you know that 25% of children and adolescent emergency room visits related to
medical devices are for contact lens problems? Many
of our children and teenagers start wearing contact lenses as they enter junior
high or high school. Safe and enjoyable contact lens wear does require good
hygiene and care in order to prevent a risk of infection. Young people are
notoriously poor at caring for their contact lenses, creating a potential
gateway for serious eye infections that can cause impaired vision or even
blindness. Research
has shown that poor contact lens care practices by teens and young people raise
their risk of eye conditions such as infectious keratitis and corneal ulcers. In the most severe cases,
they may require corneal transplants to restore sight. Fortunately, contact
lens eye infections can be prevented by following simple contact lens care
guidelines.
Here are some practical safety tips that teens with contact lenses should
follow to avoid eye infections.
New
Quarter, New Case! Replacing your contact lens case every three months will
help keep germs at bay. To make it easy to remember, swap out your case at the
beginning of each quarter. Waiting to replace contact lens cases after 6 months
increases the risk of eye infection by nearly 5.5 times!
Just
Say NO to H20. You may be captain of the swim team, but you
shouldn’t swim, shower or go in a hot tub wearing lenses. Water from the tap
might be clean enough to drink or bathe in, but it’s still home to the parasite
Acanthamoeba, which can cause severe eye infections resulting in vision loss.
For the same reasons, NEVER use water to rinse or soak contact lenses or cases.
You
Snooze, You Lose. Never
sleep in your contact lenses. Even occasionally sleeping in contact lenses
increases the risk of moderate to severe eye infection by 6.5 times.
Unfortunately, a poll of nearly 100,000 people by BuzzFeed found that about 70
percent of respondents occasionally or regularly sleep in their contact lenses.
It’s
Too Late If You Wait. Symptoms of eye infections include redness, pain and
light sensitivity and requiring examination and evaluation immediately. Waiting
to get examined or treated could lead to vision loss.
If
you or someone you know would like to learn more or has questions about contact
lens hygiene and safety, please schedule an appointment at Center
for Sight 508-730-2020, visit Center for Sight, Google or www.facebook.com/centerforsightfallriver to schedule an appointment.
Center for Sight is conveniently located
at 1565
North Main Street, Suite 406, Fall River, Massachusetts 02720 for patients from
Massachusetts or Rhode Island.
