Losing your Eyes from Contact Lenses!!

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving and will have a great Holiday season. I saw this interesting article regarding a man who lost his eye from contact lenses. That's right you read correctly, a 59 year old British man, contracted a rare infection and had to get surgical removal of his eye to save his life.

For many of us out there who are contact lens wearers such as myself, we do many of the things we shouldn't do while wearing and caring for our lenses. Like many of us contacts wearers we sleep or nap with them on, re-use and top off old solutions, we do rub and clean them prior to and after each use, wash our hands thoroughly before placing and removing our lenses or using tap water to clean them. These are all harmful habits that can lead us to contract rare infections such as amoeba, which can lead to you, losing your eye.

The thing is all you need is one time to come in contact with this bug and that could be it for your vision. Many ophthalmologist agree that it is extremely difficult to treat, even if caught early. Also, like many of us who brush off a little irritation, redness or itching of the eye from our contact lenses, so did the British man who lost his eye.

Let me give you a personal example of other dangers with wearing contact lenses. I have used contacts for over 15years of my life. I luckily have not lost my vision or contracted amoeba, but I came very close. I will never forget it, just like many of you who wear contacts, we sleep and take naps in them occasionally. But, no matter the type of lenses, even if the manufacturers state its ok to sleep with them DO NOT!!! I vividly remember in my college days going out with friends, having some drinks and good company. By the end of the night I was either to intoxicated or lazy to remove my contacts, so I slept with them in for about 6-8hours. The next morning, when I had woken up I was blind!!! All I could see was blackness, darkness and nothing. I waited 10, 15, 20 seconds and nothing. I remember screaming, that I can't see and tumbling down the hallway with my hands to guide me to the bathroom. I immediately took off my contacts, but still I could not see!!!!! I splashed water in my eyes and after about a few minutes of being blind in both eyes, my vision slowly returned. It was the scariest and most terrifying experience I ever had in regards to losing my vision and I will never ever forget!

So please, take it from me do the right thing, care for your eyes properly and listen to your ophthalmologist!

Mahalo!