You pretty much have to have a corneal abrasion (scratch) before introducing the eye to water. It's not something you're going to get randomly from taking a shower or swimming. However, wearing contacts regularly for the last twenty years, I tend to get an abrasion once every two years or so. I'm extra careful during these times..
In 2001, there were about 7 cases in the US per year. It took me 6 months of excruciating pain and three eye doctors just to diagnose it. Luckily the third doctor really knew what he was doing. He diagnosed it in about 2-3 visits, snuck me some non-FDA approved drops with chlorine in them, and got rid of the infection.
I had to do a corneal transplant and still can't see very well out of it - cloudy with an astigmatism too large to correct.
Hello pietistic, I'm the person in the piece, I hope you don't mind my responding to you directly. I'm sorry you had AK, and I hope you're doing better now. Just to be clear, swimming in contact lenses is an incontrovertible risk factor for AK- several studies have proved this. Moorfields Eye Hospital are also concluding a case control study which will also identify showering in contact lenses is a risk factor. Here's professor John Dart from Moorfields Eye Hospital talking about these risk factors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neUYomeUkYM. Any questions let me know. thanks!
Just wanted to say that the work you've done is really impressive and inspiring. As a contact lens wearer, I just learned about AK thanks to you. Good on you for taking the initiative to be a force for positive change.
I had a relatively minor eye infection a few years ago, but wanting to prevent something worse, had switched to wearing contacts only for special occasions and... swimming.
Thanks to your sharing, I will no longer swim with them. I'll try prescription goggles instead.
Jesus, I even swim in lakes with mine in. Guess I'll be seriously looking at the the risks+cost of laser vision correction versus contacts in the near future. And switching to daily disposables in the meantime. I've worn them for 15 years and am not very careful, it's a miracle I haven't had any infections of any sort yet, I guess.
Getting LASEK was one of the better decisions I've made in life. The risk of infection is extremely low for the procedure but you need to be extra careful while you're healing. It may not be worth the price if your vision is currently not that awful, however.
there is a 1 in 100K chance of serious complications for modern LASIX requiring corneal transplant. That's a higher incidence than the chance of getting AK if you wear contact lenses.
Both are terrible complications but I don't see the rationale of avoiding AK by getting LASIX. I couldn't find any literature but it seems to me that the fact that LASIX damages the cornea for a time would also leave one open to an infection in addition to the complications.
Yeah, but the risk from contact lenses comes over time as it's a risk every time you put your lenses in where with laser correction the risk pretty much only exists while you are healing. You really only have to avoid getting stuff in your eye while the bandage lens is in.
Everything I've read about comparing the risk notes this factor.
I'm sure that if you wear contacts perfectly all the time the risk is very low, but as we all know people do stupid things.
That said, the decision to get surgery was more about not having to deal with glasses or contacts every day and less about the risk.
Anecdotally, I agree: it can't be that easy. I've worn contacts for most of my life (including while doing competitive swimming, showering, etc), and recently (3 years ago) got into scleral lenses (which included instructions from my optometrist to rinse these contacts in cold water to rid them of preservatives). If the formula really was "tap water and mis-care of contact lenses induces eye infection", I would have been blind before I could vote.
Maybe I'm just that lucky. A shame my lottery tickets disagree.
Not to be too dismissive about your experiences, but making medical-related decisions based on anecdotal evidence is a really bad idea -- the debate over vaccines is a good example of this IMO.
Have a look at reenw's numerous comments in this thread for references to sources/studies that suggest that it can be that easy...
>if "tap water and mis-care of contact lenses induces eye infection", I would have been blind before I could vote.
Tap water and mis-care of contact lenses induces significantly elevated risks of eye infection. Your lottery ticket comparison is apt, since as the article and some other comments here reflect, you are gambling your sight with this attitude. Same one everyone hears from the guy who doesn't wear glasses while he's running a lathe. The difference being, at least that guy can argue his skill reduces his risk of injury.
Would it be wise to stop looking both ways before crossing the street because the first three times you tried it you weren't struck by a car?
No, but if I haven't been struck in the more than 8,300 times I've done it previously, I might have a more lax attitude. Especially when changing habits also includes a fairly major dollar cost.
All that said, after reading a number of different resources, I am considering such a change.
Acanthamoeba is an amoeba that lives in the water. So yes, it's tap water plus handling your contacts in the same way that touching a door knob can give you a cold. Just because you've touched door knobs without getting a cold doesn't mean you shouldn't wash your hands.
I've had one due to dropping some stucco into my eye when working on a ceiling, before I realized what happened my eye had rotated causing some pretty deep scratches. Both extremely painful and took surprisingly long to heal.
I tried contacts twice, a few years apart. On both occasions, a few weeks in, I ended up sitting in front of an opthalmologist having had what seems to have been a corneal abrasion from the contact lens. The opthalmologist couldn't find anything wrong, and I can only guess that maybe a dry eye caused the lens to stick to both the ball and lid, then moving the lid yanked the lens and in turn the ball. Seriously sharp pain and eye streaming.
This is scary, I have 1 month disposables but use them for 1-3 months, I always insert them with wet hands, I shower with them on most days, I swim at the gym with them but use goggles. I've been doing this for the last 14yrs, time to change my habits!
If I understand correctly, you have to have an open wound for this to occur?
It's can be quite unpleasant. The test for it is very straight forward - eye drops and someone looks into your eye. Wear goggles when grinding steel and even if you do, take care when washing your face afterwards. Steel stuck in your cornea, cutting your eyelid when blinking is terrible.
> Wear goggles when grinding steel and even if you do, take care when washing your face afterwards.
Go one further: Goggles and a face shield, minimum. Why?
Have you ever had a right-angle grinder wheel explode? I have (it was actually a cut-off wheel). At the time I wasn't wearing even goggles, just my eye glasses. Amazingly, nothing hit me in the face, but I do remember hearing the part ricochet around my friend's shop (fortunately, I was the only one in it at the time).
Unfortunately, a piece hit my knuckle - extremely hard; I thought I had lost my finger, but amazingly not (oh, I wasn't wearing gloves, either).
I should've got stitches, but my friend took care of it; we washed it out, wrapped it up, then he gave me a percocet to take the edge off the pain. I remember at one point we looked at it after it had been a few hours, to see if I could still move it; I started to flex it, and had a small Monty Python flesh-wound moment (seriously, it made me laugh it was so cliche looking - though completely real); but I could move it. All's good today, still typing with it!
Basically me doing everything wrong (it really was all my fault, I shouldn't have been handling that equipment - I think I was also wearing shorts, a t-shirt and open-toe sandals at the time - a total DERP moment, but that's all it took), I knew better even then, but I was stupid that day. Faster than you can blink, bam, and there it was.
I take a lot more precautions now before I handle spinning cutting/grinding shit moving at 20k RPM (though I am still not a fan of my friend's open-guard 9 inch grinder - the thing will grind anything off anything, but holy hell is it dangerous to use - if that thing let loose, no amount of safety equipment will save you).
Oh - and if you are arc welding, don't wear a white shirt; reflection of the arc can bounce off inside your helmet, and still cause "welder's blindness" - which is basically a nice sunburn to the cornea; generally not a permanent thing, but hurts like hell for a long while.
Also, use a guard on angle grinders! And keep it in between you and the work! A man was killed by an exploding cutting disk at a company I used to work at. Shrapnel lodged in his chest, he took the guard off to get at something more easily.
Yes. It's a tradesman hack to buy a 115mm grinder (it's cheap), take off the guard and fit 125mm disks. People have been killed here recently by broken bits firing out. Cutting disks are so thin that a minor course correction can easily break them. Someone I know had a labourer use a grinder with a broken on off switch. One day the guy put it under his arm and plugged it in, and it cut through artery, vein and nerve. A year later and he is just starting part time work.
Paradoxically it's harder to tell when you have your lenses on. They're a barrier between the surface of the cornea and the inner eye lid so they actually mask the pain you might feel without them.
Although I wear extended wear lenses which are FDA approved to stay in for 30 continuous days my optometrist has emphasized that they need to come out every week for an evening so that you can evaluate the condition of your eyes and how your cornea is feeling. It only takes a few days to develop an abrasion that as folks have noted is very painful.
As long as I can wear lenses overnight I'm never going to try LASIX. Just too many people that run into issues with dry eyes, halos and poor night vision. Since I'd still have to wear reading glasses I don't even see the point - with my multifocal lenses I almost never wear glasses anymore for reading even.
I've been wearing contacts for over 20 years (started in HS) and have never had a corneal abrasion. With a prescription of -8.5, I hate the tunnel-vision effect glasses give me, so I wear my contacts pretty much all the time (I don't sleep in them, however).
A coworker came into work one day with a really ugly looking right eye (red, tearing, etc.) Turns out he got whacked in the face by a tree branch on his way in (he rode his bicycle to work). He was even wearing glasses but apparently that didn't protect his eye (enough). He lasted about an hour before he left to go see his eye doc who diagnosed him with a corneal abrasion. Guy was in pain for weeks.
So my assessment is that corenal abrasions are caused by 'bad luck.'
I sleep in mine, except for once a week when I take them out to disinfect overnight or replace (I have 2-week disposables). I've had a mix of opinions from doctors on this. My current doctor says it's fine if my eyes aren't getting dry/irritated (in which case I should take them out), though I've had past doctors who were against it.
The tradeoff in the current doctor's opinion is that taking them out nightly reduces infection risk theoretically, through nightly disinfection, better access to the eye surface for your immune system, and lower risk of corneal abrasions. But handling the contacts daily for removal/reinsertion provides a new route for infection, as a lot of infections are introduced by fingers, lens cases, etc. So the added handling might offset the benefits of nightly removal enough to make it a net loss, if you're one of the people for whom sleeping in contacts doesn't produce dry eyes or irritation. Real-world data seems not good enough to compare the magnitude of those two effects.
An anecdotal word of warning: I wore bi-weekly disposables as well for quite a few years and would repeatedly sleep in them. Never had dry eyes or irritation, however after a few years I developed tiny capillaries growing in my eye (corneal neovascularization), as it turned out they were not getting enough oxygen.
Supposedly if they continue to grow I could lose my eyesight, and they won't actually go away even if I stopped wearing lenses.
Yeah, that's a good point. I've had that mentioned to me, but I get annual checkups, and have been told that they'd show up in the annual checkup if I were having that problem, at which point I could change my habits (it's not an acute condition that crops up in a month or something). Supposedly that complication has also gotten less common in the past 5-10 years as newer lens materials are much more oxygen-permeable than older ones were.
I caught my eye with the edge of a cardboard box.
On the way to the hospital I had to drive into the sun. Both keeping my eye open or closed was painful.
The test they did was a couple of drops in my eye and a black-light. The end result was just a few days Vicodin script and after a couple days I was fine. The drugs didn't even reduce the pain from what I could tell. Luckily they made me tired so I slept for most of those days anyways.
Generally your eye becomes red, it hurts, and is sensitive to light. There are varying degrees of an abrasion though, and the severity of these symptoms may make the less severe versions harder to determine if it's an abrasion or something else.
> snuck me some non-FDA approved drops with chlorine in them
Yikes! I mean, that'd do it, but yikes.
I wonder how much chlorine it takes. Would swimming in the local pool with your eyes open help count as treatment? Probably not, the article says it's "common in tap water, sea water and swimming pools." Still.
My guess is that it was chlorhexidine drops. It's a disinfectant compound that contains chlorine, but isn't directly comparable to the free chlorine that acts as a pool disinfectant. The drops approved in Europe (and used to treat AK) are chlorhexidine 0.02%.
2. Person decides to dedicate resources to educate and prevent the misfortune from happening to somebody else.
I think these people should get more recognition; it is a proof of their commitment to our society and to the well-being of their fellow humans. Much appreciated!
I don't quite see it that way. More often than not, it's
1. Person suffers a loss or misfortune.
2. Person makes widely inaccurate extrapolations on the actual danger, without seeing the broad implications or consequences by scaring people into woefully uninformed behavior, under the guise of 'but look! it happened to me! It'll happen to you!'.
Case in point from the media last week: ticks and Lyme disease. Some woman on the news on a personal crusade against Lyme because she contracted it when she was 13 and it caused major issues in her 20's. Sucks for her, of course, and some sort of public awareness about checking for ticks when you've been out in nature is good; but her message was hysterical. Our local equivalent of the CDC basically says 'we have basic awareness campaigns, but we don't want to scare people from going outside, because the benefits outweigh the risks'. And then you have one person who has her 15 minutes of fame, spreading massive misinformation about risks to a general population that isn't capable of understanding the concept a normal distribution curve, let alone make an assessment on an epidemiological risk.
Happens too often. And the media is more than happy to boost the hysterics.
Case in point: Child commits suicide. Parents seize on admission that he smoked salvia in his diary. Parents become convinced Salvia Killed Their Son, launch crusade to criminalize use of salvia. All available scientific evidence points to child being depressed and salvia not being capable of causing depression or thoughts of suicide. No one cares because parents are loud and convinced and passionate. State passes law banning salvia; names it after dead child.
I saw a campaign once from a parent who's child was injured at a park trying to get monkey bars banned claiming they were deadly. Life's full of small risks and tradeoffs, you have to just accept the small ones for the greater good.
Sometimes bad stuff happens, and that sucks, but it doesn't always mean something is wrong or needs to change.
There are definitely people out there who will exaggerate the dangers.
What's worse, many times their actions will lead to some piece of legislation, which will now govern the lives of millions of people; so now you pay the price of being over regulated even though the risks associated with some activity x are quite low, and there's no reason to complicate the system.
But I believe more often than not people will remain passive in the face of a misfortune, and will simply carry on with their lives. And this what prompted me to want to recognize people – such as the lady in the article – because through little tweaks like theirs our society becomes safer, better.
Except that the tick danger is not exaggerated. If you frequent the woods (and I mean, go inside them, not just staying on the paths), then you will get ticks (clothing doesn't make a difference unless you go in a space suit). And if you keep doing that for years, you will rack up a dozen - or rather, dozens - of ticks, and chances for tick-borne diseases are surprisingly high.
This depends on so many things - your comment is precisely hysterical.
It depends on where you live, whether or not you check yourself after you leave the woods, what kinds of ticks they are, whether the disease is being carried, and what kind of disease it is.
I grew up in the woods. I've had lots of ticks crawl all over me. I've only been bitten a time or two. And the ticks I've encountered don't carry Lyme's disease.
And that is NOT to say that my experience is everyone's experience and that there is no danger. But your comment is absolutely exaggerated.
My statements are true for most of central Europe. They are also true for large parts of the US. Solid data backs this up. This is not an emotional argument, tick prevalence is a well-researched field with lots of data.
The data says it's likely you'll get ticks, but not that you'll suffer severe consequences if you do minimal care. Every bushcrafter and scout knows to check for ticks. The prevalence of life-long Lyme disease with debilitation consequences is very small. I know that you're not even claiming otherwise, but the way you're making your argument is scare mongering and misleading to those who know nothing about ticks and tick-borne diseases.
Yes, you'll get ticks. And you need to check for them, remove them the right way, and if you get red rings you need to go to your GP and get antibiotics. But out of the millions of tick bites that happen, tiny percentages cause anything more than a few days of fever (even that is already rare!) and debilitating, life-long consequences have a probability of happening in the same league as, say, getting bitten by a shark, or being shot at by Russian cruise missiles while you're on your way to your holiday destination.
While if the gruesome story of how 'a tick I got just from being outside' is front page news for a few days, many people will think 'o I better keep my children inside'. And the aggregate effects of that (while not as spectacular, or even reducible to this news item), are worse than whatever it is they're trying to prevent.
How often do you see 'person has something horrible happen to them, studies the field for 10 years, becomes expert and launches a well-balanced education or prevention campaign'? I've never heard it. What I do hear and see is 'person with median intelligence has something happen to them, goes on myopic crusade using mostly pathos in the form of graphic descriptions of their physical tribulations as a crutch for their own emotional healing'. Nothing wrong with people of median intelligence (or less), but it is wrong when they use things that happened to them by accident as a means of presenting a distorted vision of reality to others.
Sure, but no need to scare people into doing that with worst-case scenario stories of loosing eyes. From a public health advocacy point of view, that's counter productive. There are huge amounts of research on this, which of course the uninformed (but well-meaning!) crusaders are generally totally oblivious about.
James Titcombe who has been campaigning around maternity safety, particularly culture of midwives, after his child died. He used to work in nuclear safety, he now works in patient safety. https://twitter.com/JamesTitcombe?lang=en
Martin Bromiley, who campaigns around clinical human factors after his wife died. He uses his knowledge of airline style investigation. https://twitter.com/MartinBromiley?lang=en
It happens to them, suddenly they do care, now they are a great person?
Person is not an expert in the field but they educate people about it? Now they are a worse person quite frankly.
What you describe is exactly why part of current society is so toxic.
Lucky we have people who do care about issues that are real and serious (not just what they are invested in) and do fight and educate. But sometimes I think they are losing to the people above.
It isn't completely clear from the article (and maybe she can inform us, because I'd like to know), but it sounded like there was a warning included somewhere, it just wasn't in bolded 48pt red letters or something...?
I used to wear contacts for several years, but later switched back to contacts. I live in the United States, so I understand that may have bearing here, with our laws on medical information via the FDA and CDC informing things, which may be different from what the NHS did.
I do recall, though, when I got my contacts and my lens cleaning solution and other stuff, that there was a pamphlet included in the boxes of both the contacts and the lens solution, that unfolded into this large-ish document with fine print (you know what I mean - such documents are included with every single kind of prescription drug or device, and often with every kind of OTC drug as well - especially ones involving the eyes, or which were once Rx only) describing everything about the contacts, about the solution, about care and cleaning, about the molecular structure of the solution (seriously!), and...about potential problems of improper care and other issues which could arise.
I remember reading the whole thing, which I tend to do with all such pamphlets, because you never know what interesting and useful information you'll find (sometimes, you'll even find humor buried in them - almost like they don't expect anyone to read them, and so you hit on weird things many people never see). I recall reading about this particular issue, and so I paid special attention to dry my hands before handling the contacts, and flushing them well with the solution before I put them in. If I had any irritation at all before putting them in or afterward, I didn't wear them, and/or removed them - and put on a pair of glasses (which I had gotten with every new prescription as a backup).
Was this information written in bold on the outside of the box or whatnot? No. Should it have been? I don't know. Again, the fact that it was included at all may just be due to our laws here in the United States. Furthermore, I'm not even sure if it would matter if it were included in bold print on the outside (or if, over time, this woman's campaign won't suffer in the same manner); much like the various "Are you sure? (Y/N)?" dialog popups on software, or the various "may cause cancer" warning in bold print on cigarette packs, such warning may ultimately be ignored instead of followed or read. Then we're right back to where we were. People will even claim up and down that they weren't warned enough, too (and make post-hoc rationalizations when shown the evidence that the warnings were there).
There's not much we can do to fix this; this woman's campaign is laudable in trying to fix it, but I think that much like nobody reads those pamphlets except weirdos like me, many are going to ignore the message written in bold on the outside of the boxes - because reasons.
Hello It's been a busy few days, otherwise I would have responded to your post sooner. I am afraid there is NO warning about water on contact lens packaging. There isn't a leaflet in the box. That's why I'm trying to do something about it. If you ignore advice, that's one thing. But if it's not given to you, that's a whole different issue.
The only thing I can contribute to this is my experience of one-eyedness. I think people are probably more afraid of it than they should be, having had eyesight in two eyes till I was early twenties I can remember the difference. In terms of your daily life it's almost no impact, there are three things that for me are important.
Reduced spatial awareness on the bad side (duh), so you'll be slightly more likely to stumble a bit or bump into something and seem clumsy
Certain sports are much harder and you pretty much couldn't compete in them - almost any sport involving a ball. However this leaves lots of sports and I was fairly successful in grappling sports afterwards
Low level fear - I don't have a spare and being actually blind is obviously orders of magnitude more impact on your life.
I had a friend who was only sighted in one eye... his only problems were no ball sports (like you) and depth perception made parking his big ass crown victoria harder than it should have been...
My fiancé can only use one eye at once due to a complicated condition, and also does not drive currently. I'm hoping for self driving cars to become a thing ASAP because having 2 kids and only one driver is quite taxing.
It's amazing you mention that, I have amblyopia, but I actually learnt about that name into my late twenties. I always had a lazy eye (had an operation when I was 4, but did nothing...), so that lazy eye never properly developed, it hava a vision of like 2/10. It only see the left far side, very blurry, so I have an almost 100% field of view, but that's about it.
It never bother me, except what you talked about, is some very particular tasks, some task like filling a glass of water can be challenging as I have no parallax, so no real depth of field. Sometimes I can't tell if your glass is right under my jug or not.
Sports with ball, forget it, ping-pong and badminton was just impossible for me in high-school/college.
Bumping into things happen often, and no 3D movies for me, also VR is a lot less appealing and immersive :(
I have amblyopia in one eye too, try doing LSD or one of its semi-legal analogues. While on 300µg I was able to read with the lazy eye and got 3d vision. I was looking at a tree with lots of branches and suddenly it clicked. I retained 3d vision for about 2 weeks afterwards, progressively weaker.
Interesting experience. 3d vision really means depth is directly perceived in the same manner as width and height. Now I understand why so many people are afraid of heights.
Funny thing actually there are treatments for amblyopia and they consist of hiding your good eye while you're watching psychedelic/highly coloured images with your other.
Can't find the name of the company who do that, I did contact them, but mine was too severe to be considered for trials.
About the ball sport thing, you might find inspiring the story of Ian McKinley. He's a rugby player who got blind in one eye as result of a playing accident. He still competes professionally: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/behind-the-lines/2016/sep/...
My father was born with only one working eye. The only time it ever comes up is if you try to get his attention on his "bad" side and that we always avoid 3D movies.
I have one eye. It's worse than 2d because you pay more, and have to wear ill fitting, uncomfortable glasses which obstruct the movie both with the frames and the lens. The glasses don't make it 3D for me, they just mean it's not blurry (mostly). And after all that I still get the privilege of a headache partway through the movie.
As a former contact lens wearer, infections like these, amongst a lot of other reasons, are why I chose PRK (laser eye surgery). Statistically, there's a higher chance of infection with wearing contacts than there is with receiving laser eye surgery[0]. I paid about $3k and came out with better vision than I had with glasses/contacts. The only negative side effects I've noticed are slight starbursts around lights at night, but its never been a problem and now I rarely notice it.
I would also recommend PRK over LASIK because LASIK requires permanent flaps to be cut on the surface of your eyes. This can sometimes lead to some nasty accidents with the flap being damaged in certain cases. PRK has been around a lot longer and requires wearing bandages over the eyes for a couple of weeks, which is why LASIK became more popular for a while (i.e. the flaps act as bandages). But now they can provide contact bandages for PRK where you aren't blind and useless for weeks making LASIK less desirable.
(Not a doctor, just read some papers before doing my PRK)
SMILE is new but insanely expensive, though it's the only procedure you can do if you need high correction.
LASIK you flap up the epithelial cells and part of your cornea, and then the laser comes in and ablates the inside of your cornea and you put it back on. If you need high correction, you need more depth of ablation. Since you "lost" some of your cornea because of the flap in terms of depth that can be ablated, for medium to high correction, it is not possible. I think if you have -5 or so it starts getting dicey.
PRK you don't have the flap, they just rub off the epithelial cells so you have the entire cornea to ablate if you want. I think this also starts getting dicey with really high ablation depth, obviously. If you have like -12, the doctor will not even think about PRK.
SMILE you actually pop in a high diffraction, engineered lens in, which can be used to achieve a ludicrously high correction, at the cost of well, cost, and maybe more uncertain long term prognosis?
I'm interested in getting this, but am concerned that it is much less battle-tested than PRK. I'm currently leaning toward PRK since it is so tried-and-tested.
Go for PRK if you have low correction. I had -4.50 on both eyes and LASIK was kind of dicey. Just know that for a month or 1.5 months you're blind, guaranteed. Don't freak out like I did.
I also got weird stuff like my own blood plasma that has been centrifuged and filtered to put in my eye, as well as Mitomycin-C. Your doctor may offer those, and both of those seemed to have clinical trials to reduce the chance of hazing.
Just think whether or not glasses bother you so much that you need it though, I never really got bothered by glasses a lot, and laser ablated vision is a little wonky for me because my pupils dilate a lot and that causes lots of starbursting at low light which I think I didn't see with glasses.
Infections are rare. I get the impression that people with adverse reactions to LASIK and tested procedures, while also rare, are relatively more common. I'd hate to get LASIK and be one of the minority that has annoyingly dry eyes, or can't even drive at night or enjoy a movie in the dark due to halos. Am I wrong on the data?
I had dry eyes (although I never noticed it) going into the procedure, and while I'm healing I put artificial tears in at night and a couple times during the day. It's well worth it to be able to not have to mess with glasses to put my motorcycle helmet on. If one had really bad dry eyes after correction one could get tear wells put in. If one had too dry of eyes before the doctor would recommend against the procedure.
I'm currently recovering from a PRK surgery (Epi-Bowman Keratectomy specifically). I had the procedure last Thursday and for the first 2 days my eyes felt like they were on fire but then it suddenly stopped and now my eyesight is slowly improving (I can use a computer but I have trouble with focusing my sight on distant objects so driving a car is out of question for now). It's interesting how people are scared of laser eye surgeries but at the same time they don't mind using contact lenses that greatly increase risk of infections.
I'm a contact lens wearer for about a couple of decades, and never had a problem. However, contacts are not for everyone. I have seen friends:
- Pick up a dropped contact lens from the floor, blow on it, and put it on
- Take it out/put it in without any hand washing
- Rinse contacts with tap water
- Reuse the same lens for weeks just because
What I do:
- Wash hands before handling
- Rinse fingers with contact/saline solution for a couple of seconds
- Use daily disposables and do not reuse them
- If I drop a lens, I just grab a new one.
It's hard to make decisions based on this unfortunate story without understanding that person's hygiene/lens wearing habits, personal health history, and so on.
In my younger years I once put my (soft) contacts on the desk next to the bed in the hostel I was staying in. The next morning they had turned into wrinkly rock-hard bits of plastic. I massaged them with water for a while and put them in. It hurt like hell, but it 'worked'.
I like to think I'm less stupid these days, and I'm thankful my eyes seem to be doing fine.
Daily disposables make the hygiene aspect ridiculously simple: wash and dry your hands, and throw them out when done. They're individually cheap enough that tossing a dropped lens every so often doesn't really hurt.
Of course, when I started I ran into an interesting issue: occasionally I'd wind up pulling them out briefly and reseating them for comfort. Once or twice, that bit me in the, er, eye when an eyelash got inserted with the lens. I wound up trying a couple different brands as a result, before stumbling on my current choice (Dailies Total1 lenses). At the risk of sounding like an ad, they're beyond comfortable and practically impossible to feel. Which has its own disadvantages. On a couple of occasions, a lens got shifted to the side of my eye and I wound up putting another one in the following day. And let me tell you, that's painful as hell after a few seconds.
I just wish there was a similar disposable lens designed to alleviate digital eyestrain. No way in hell would I willingly go to 30 day lenses.
What is "digital eyestrain"? I know some people claim yellow/orange glass glasses help - but if it's dry eyes, it might help to simply blink more often - maybe set a timer like for exercise/change position? And perhaps add in a round of focus exercise (focus far/focus close; repeat)?
It's also called computer vision syndrome, and is pretty common. Everything you mentioned helps alleviate it. But I've noticed that my contact lenses sometimes seem to precipitate it; at other times, they're perfectly fine. After doing a bit of reading, a relatively new aspheric lens design (Biofinity Energys) might help with that. But I'd rather just wear my glasses while working than deal with monthlies.
I have lenses that you can wear for a month but sometimes slightly go over it as well.
If they fall on the table - I'll pick them up and rinse them, if they fall on the floor, they're gone.
my contact solution (clearcare, which cleans very well) is 3% hydrogen peroxide, the bottle is very clear about not rinsing with solution prior to inserting, unless you want your eyes to burn very painfully. So rinsing your hands with solution isn't general purpose advice unless you know its safe.
Oh yeah, for sure. The ClearCare bottle even has a red tip to signify that it's not eye-safe. For what I said, you'd only want to use a rinse/rewetting/saline solution.
But because I use dailies only, don't even need to buy a disinfecting solution, and no chance of bacteria accumulating overnight. I'm actually curious why doesn't everyone just use dailies. They aren't much costlier, while being way more comfortable with less upkeep.
I only recently starting wearing contacts full time and switched after a month to monthly lenses. With dailies I never felt like I hard the same sharpness that I have with glasses while the monthly ones are perfect.
As a contact lens wearer for almost 20 years, I wasn't aware of this. I regularly swim and shower with lenses in my eyes.
I'd really like to understand what role the lenses play in the infection occurring. Presumably an eye without a lens could also get the infection from a water source?
From the sound of things, the contact lens creates an artificial protective cap, providing an environment for single-celled animals, via capillary action, and they acquire a stable environment, and either feed off the cornea, or produce harmful waste, or both, resulting in scars.
Even worse, it sounds like after a foothold is established, they become entrenched, and eventually no longer need the supportive bootstrap environment the contact lens initially provided. Based on the multiple relapses described in the article, it sounds as though her original infection never completely went away. So the infection can happen without contact lenses, but normal healthy eyes seem capable of fending off these attackers.
Normally, the eye is constantly flushing fluid across its surface, and I suppose the socket and inner eyelids must assist in fighting off invasive organisms, even if simply by friction and moisturization. Somehow, the artificial cap of the contact lens is different, holding the organisms in place, and offering stability and traction.
I've worn both, and whenever getting monthlies, my optometrist always told me not to get in the water with them/avoid getting water on them. In regards to dailies, it apparently shouldn't be an issue, as presumably if you get in the water with a daily, you'll probably be taking it out <12h later.
It does imply she was using them when she got the infection. However, it doesn't say anything about her usage habits. It's possible to misuse the disposable contacts. For example, by wearing them more than once or keeping them in too long. I wish it had gone further into that. I would very much like to know if it's possible to get this type of infection even if you only use them once a day and do all of the hygienic things you're supposed to do. I shower with my contacts pretty regularly. Showering without them actually kinda sucks. :(
Hello there, I'm the person in the piece, I hope you don't mind if I respond to your comment above- I wore dailies as per instructions, only single use and then I threw them away. I had worn lenses every day in the run up to the infection. I hadn't gone swimming in lenses in the previous months but I had occasionally showered in them. We don't know what caused my AK, but many patients have reported swimming or showering in lenses before getting the infection and there is a strong correlation. Epidemiological studies have proven the link between swimming in lenses and AK. Studies have also isolated the same exact genetic strain of acanthamoeba from patients' bathroom sinks and shower taps as the one found in their eyes. Showering is a risk factor for AK. If you want to know more please do go ahead and ask anything else.
I'd just like to say thank-you for writing about what happened to you. I am going to be much more careful about my contacts from now on. I also use dailies, never for > 24hrs. But I didn't dry my hands and used them in the shower occasionally. Not any more.
As a long-time contact lens wearer who has at time been lax with hygiene best-practice (often I drop a lens in the basin, pick it our and rinse off with saline solution), I was a little alarmed after reading what you've been through.
Can you point me towards any further background reading or references on this topic?
I was under the impression that dailies were an elaborate scam, as they were identical to monthly contacts except for price. Have been wearing my dailies as monthlies but maybe I should research this a little bit more.
You are contributing to the plastic pollution problem by wearing dailies. Your contact lenses are going to end up in our water streams and nature areas. Yet another reason not do use dailies, or contact lenses at all.
That would make sense. In which case the real risk might be from rising the lens and then inserting it. Getting exposed to water when already inserted in the eye (ie. shower or swimming) might be less risky, unless the water somehow penetrates under the lens.
I happen to know Irenie personally. One of the things that she's done to help others in the wake of her illness is to get together with other patients and medical practitioners at Moorfields Eye Hospital to write a pamphlet with information about Acanthamoeba Keratitis. It has information about the condition in easy to understand language.
Yeah.. it's something I ponder every now and then. Been wearing contacts for 10 years, and never really had an issue with them.. But I know that if something was to happen I would feel a lot of regret.
It's a shame that headsets and glasses don't work together that well, and I hate the smudges that you get on glasses with a passion.
I've been wearing monthly contacts for 3 years now. I take them out each night and soak them in a 3% hydrogen peroxide solution (Clear Care), and dispose of them on the first of the month.
I highly value my sight, so I have a routine which makes me feel comfortable with sticking things in and touching my eyes twice a day. My optometrists have always told me to avoid using water, saliva, etc, to clean the lenses, and so I do.
1. Wash my hands with soap and water, and usually scrub my fingernails with a brush.
2. Grab a fresh paper towel and pat dry my hands to sop up the water. Rubbing my hands with the paper towel, in my opinion, could leave fragments which could transfer to my eye / behind the contact.
3. Open the contact container, pull out the right lens, close the contact container.
4. Insert the right lens.
5. Repeat step 3 with left lens.
6. Clean up the area with the paper towel from step 2.
I regularly (nearly every day) shower with the lenses in, though while I make an effort to avoid getting water in my eyes, splashes obviously happen. I've also spent weeks vacationing and swimming in the ocean with the lenses in.
It is my hope that by removing and disinfecting the lenses each night I can ward off infections while also minimizing inconvenience.
I have been wearing lenses for 10 years now and swim regularly with my lenses in. I do wear swimming goggles but of course some water sometimes enters my eye - never had a problem because of it.
I had one eye infection in my life which happened right after going to the optometrist and having my eyes checked (they put a fluid into my eyes to dilate the pupil, after that putting my lens in seemed to irritate my eye and caused an infection somehow).
But one thing I can not do is shower with my lenses in. I have done it several times but it always makes me feel so uncomfortable, the feeling of my eyes becomes so annoying (I suppose due to essentially taking steaming hot showers, the rising water vapor or something irritates my eye).
I do largely the same procedure. However, I open the container (both eyes at once), then wash and dry my hands. So the only thing my fingers touch after washing and drying is the contact solution and the contacts.
My dad is an eye doctor and has too many of these types of horror stories. While contact lenses are amazing, the fact of the matter is that the general population is either too ignorant or too careless to use them responsibly. So lots of people get infections or worse.
Both my sister and I used to wear contacts, but we ended up getting LASIK done several years ago. Best decision of our lives.
My fear with LASIK (and the other procedures) is that there isn't (I think) a ton of people who have had LASIK when they were younger (like 20) and lived up to 90 years old to know if there might be issues as we age, or incompatibility with other procedures... I worry that it could cause problems further down the line, as we age.
There's lot of people who've had these procedures done, mostly without consequences but some with issues of varying degrees of severity, but there is not a ton of people who've had this early in their life and been fine for 70 years.
Though I suppose plenty of people were corrected in their 50s or older and lived much longer and never had an issue.
LASIK dates back to 1983, so that's ~33 years worth of age related data. AKA some people aging from 25 - 58 and other doing 57 - 90, plus plenty of people in between. Also, considering how common it is there will be plenty of guinea pigs for the next LASIK alternative.
Further, people with Lasik will still get near or far sighted with age, but they tend to be better able to function without glasses.
That is actually fine. So is tap water. The main requirement for lens hygiene is that those things should always be followed by having the lens rest in a proper cleaning solution for several hours, which itself should be changed (refreshed) every other day or so.
Hello, I'm the person in this piece. Just to be clear, tap water is not safe- it contains many micro-organisms including acanthamoeba which can infect the eye via contact lenses. It is wrong to suggest tap water or saliva are safe. Contact lens solutions are not 100% effective at disinfecting lenses. These risks are real, and it's important to be aware of them so you can wear lenses safely. There's good, clear information here https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14691169
Hmm.. I've never been able to handle the "all-in-one" solutions (sensitive eyes) and use separate disinfectant and saline. I guess it wouldn't surprise me if the all-in-ones have to compromise somewhat for the sake of comfort (the regular disinfectants are definitely not ok to put in your eye).
Hmm, Contact lens wearer for 30 years now. For 28 of those years I was a RGP lens wearer. They provided much sharper vision for sports, were very cost effective (initial investment was high but lasted 3-5 years with proper care), and daily maintenance was pretty easy.
RGP lenses require a separate cleaner for 30 seconds then a solution for inserting/soaking (eventually they did come out for an all-in-one solution but I never got the same comfort from it). Since day one I was taught by my teenage eye doctor to used tap water as the rinse of the cleaning solution and did for all that time. If you didn't get the cleaning solution off real well, you'd feel it in your eye for a minute. The instructions say to use soaking solution as the "rinse" but I never did as it would be much more expensive and water always worked.
Maybe the type of lens is more susceptible to AK/Infections? RGP is a rigid almost hard type of lens. I've never had any sort of problem using tap water all this time. I've even slept in them a few times in my life. It would seem softer lenses would allow things to adhere more? I wonder if there are any correlations to the type of lens to infection?
I went to dailies two years ago mostly for comfort and convenience. I don't wearcontacts as much as I used to as i've gotten older (just throw on my glasses now because who cares now..) and RGP can get uncomfortable if not wearing them often enough. It appears dailies can give one a false sense as you get "fresh" ones every day. I've swam/showered with them at times and now worry after reading she got the AK even using dailies.
I am bewildered actually because you'd think dailies would be the best possible lens for your eye health. Soft, highly breathable and new pair every use.
Unfortunately there are a lot of people for which surgery is not recommended.
I would love to either reduce or eliminate my need for contacts, but since I'm blind in one eye, surgery is considered too risky. Wearing contacts, however, is something optometrists are fine with, although they want me to have an exam every 6 months.
I've always been fearful of correcting my -7 short-sighted vision with anything other than spectacles. Probably started while I was working as an electrical engineer at a steelworks and being told of the risks of watching a high intensity electric arc from welding or a high voltage electric contact break and then inadvertantly peeling away your cornea removing a contact lens because of the fluid between the two drying out.
I have contact lens for my -8/-8.5. I've never been exposed to anything as intense as welding, but when my lens dried out from exposure to a bbq or bonfire, they're more likely to fall out of my eye than stick to it. The lens kinda goes brittle rather than shrinkwrap onto my eye.
I really wonder this too. I've known people who used daily contacts but would leave them in for multiple days at a time (and one was a swimmer). I've swam a lot with my contacts before as I'm mostly blind without my contacts and don't want prescription goggles. This article makes me a little more reluctant to go swimming with contacts but I throw them out every night.
I wear monthlies, but when swimming I swap for dailies, chuck them right after and wear glasses for the rest of the day. I feel safer that way. But I don't take any kind of precaution in the shower. I didn't even realise there was a risk there.
One more thing to live in fear of besides climate change, cancer, drug resistant bacteria, nuclear war, terrorism and the singularity. Yay.
Should I feel better or worse that it's far less likely to affect me than any of those things?
Additionally in the U.K. hot water may not be as safe as it is in the US. Older houses tended to be built with a hot water tank in the attic (loft) and apparently some were somewhat open to the elements and animals. A legacy of that is the dual taps you find in bathroom sinks/tubs.
The contact lens cleaner solution always insists that you wash your hands with it instead of tap water. I think I'll do that from now on when changing contacts
I think that's a little overboard. If you just wash your hands with soap and water and dry them with a non-bacteria infected towel I'm guessing you shouldn't be at risk.
After you are done swimming, you are likely to remove the goggles before you completely dried yourself. Water can run from your hair down to your eyes.
Also, after swimming for an hour and taking a break, I like to remove them for a bit. It has happened that I got water in my eye in this way. Never had an infection because of it though!
Another more common eye(lid) problem people often give themselves is painful infections on the tip of the eyelids called styes. It's usually caused by someone rubbing their eyes with their hands because it's a double-whammy of cross-contaminating eyes/hands and it embeds surface bacteria into crypts of sebaceous glands.
Also, I heard from a contact wearer another painful accident is forgetting to rinse contacts with sterlie saline after they've been cleaned, that it burns pretty good. Nothing like losing your corneas, but still Pavlovian human monkey training.
Back in my monthlies days, I forgot to rinse on a couple of occasions. My God, the pain is excruciating. There's no waiting it out, and hoping your tears will clear the burning - I had to squirt saline from the bottle directly into my eye to flush it all away.
Interesting that incidence of this appears to be a full order of magnitude higher in the UK than in the US (.2 per 10k vs 2 per 10k for contact wearers). Wonder if we treat our tap water more rigorously, use more chlorine in our pools, or are the contacts themselves different?
I have worn monthly contact lenses for almost 9 years without problems and switched back to glasses couple months ago because my eyes got tired and itchy too fast in front of the computer at work (I'm a front end dev so I spent most of the day in front the computer screen).
I have to admit that I didn't know that contact lenses shouldn't come in contact with water and that it could lead to such disastrous effects which can even end in loss of eye sight. However the first time I was at an optician to figure out what kind of lenses I need, they explained me very carefully that I should -always- wash my hands and dry (and not touch anything else other than the lenses in between) them with a clean paper towel before putting in our taking out my lenses.
Furthermore never to reuse the cleansing liquid you put into the little boxes where you store your contact lenses. I strictly followed this procedure over the years without any problems but when I was at the eye specialist to get my glasses subscribed I told her that I never had any infections using contact lenses and she smiled and said that it's only a matter of time. This really got me thinking because I was planning on using daily contact lenses for when I do sports or go out. :(
I wore contact lenses for 10 years, stopping a year or so ago. I had monthly disposables and would wear them daily from around 8am - 10pm without any major issues (although my eyes did noticeably become dry/tired in the evening it wasn't that serious).
The reason why I stopped was because the lenses started becoming dry quickly and I just couldn't see the screen clearly after wearing them for a couple of hours. Nothing in my computer setup or usage habits changed. I've seen various optometrists, but they couldn't give me a reason why this was happening. They just said if I can see better with glasses, I should do that for computer use :D
I now only wear dailies, but very rarely - usually only if I'm doing sports or swimming (although maybe I won't after reading this article...). Before switching I tried different brands of contact lenses (both monthly and daily), as well as turning down brightness and flux, but they weren't helpful in my case.
Wow! This article couldn't have come at a better time for me. I recently started wearing contacts so that it's easier when I work out. But, I also started showering after my workout with the lens on. While I thought I was being plain lazy, I had no clue I was exposing myself to such a big risk!
Thank you so much for posting this and thanks to the lady in the piece for spreading awareness about this!
I occasionally use dailies - for swimming. But your example, and some of the stuff online doesn't makes sense: the difference between showering wearing contacts and without is that the contacts scrape up the cornea, and that the natural washing of tears become less effective (lenses trap all sorts of stuff on the eye).
It sounds odd that if you throw away lenses after showering anyway - the risk would be different?
Sounds like if one has been wearing lenses for a few hours, one should take precautions with getting water in the eye - with or without lenses?
Also it appears, swimming with dailies - if one wears glasses before/after and throw away the dailies - should be reasonably safe from what I can gather?
Alternatively, it would seem a lot more people would be infected even not wearing lenses at all?
It is incredibly unlikely that a bacterial infection from tap water would be able to manifest itself on an otherwise healthy eye in less than 16(?) hours. The timeframe/exposure just doesn't add up for me.
Hello, I'm the person in this piece. I can confirm I was definitely only wearing dailies for single day then throwing them away. I didn't swim in them but I am not sure about showering. Just to be really clear- acanthamoeba is not a bacterium, it is a single celled organism - a type of amoeba. The infection can take hold in just a few hours, after a single exposure to water. I am happy to answer any other questions you have on this.
>It is incredibly unlikely that a bacterial infection from tap water
It's not bacterial, it's amoebic.
I think you're being unduly skeptical and I can't find a reason beyond your own intuition, which doesn't really hold much weight against first hand accounts from individuals and trusted news sources without any clear bias or motivation to be misleading.
I'm not skeptical that this problem is correlated with wearing contact lenses, I'm skeptical that this problem is not correlated to wearing them correctly.
My point is: who is more likely to get an infection? The people that sterilize their cuts and scrapes, or the people that don't? Same thing here: for such a tiny subset of total contact wearers, it's unlikely that it has nothing to do with your lens hygiene. I doubt any one of the 125 AK sufferers in the UK were following recommended lens care/application to the letter. That does not seem unduly skeptical to me.
I'm no kind of expert, but I know the infamous "brain-eating amoeba" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naegleria_fowleri) can kill in days. It seems like a lot of things have to go wrong
at once to get an amoebic infection, but once you do they're really, really nasty.
Given that we're talking about an affliction that affects only 125 of the ~65 million people in the UK, 'incredibly unlikely' seems like a fair characterization. But even an incredibly unlikely event is going to nevertheless happen to to a few unlucky individuals when the sample size is this large, and I don't see how we have any reason to believe she is being dishonest or otherwise misrepresenting the facts.
Right and in the article the doctors even felt like they caught it early. They gave her powerful medication and even surgical replacements.
Her case just make have been incredibly invasive? The medication may have pushed the infection deeper into the eye or surrounding tissue, or it may have developed resistance.
AK can go from no symptoms to significant risk to lose eyesight in less than 12 hours, and you can absolutely get it even when following suggested procedures.
A friend of mine got it just a month ago, and luckily he got it diagnosed correctly right away. He woke up in the morning with no issue, and by the evening he was in the emergency room. A quick diagnosis saved his eyesight despite the very aggressive onset, the fastest the doctor treating him had ever seen.
Maybe AK is silently established in the eye sometimes, and an abrasion or some other factor allows it to take hold in the cornea? My friend was soldering with bad ventilation and he probably got plenty of microscopic resin particles in his eyes, which might have caused abrasions? His AK took hold right on the edge under the contacts.
So, I never dried my hands before handling my lenses - I'd wash them thoroughly, rinse them with tap water, then rinse my fingertips again with a little saline or lens cleaning solution. My intuition was that my hand towel was likely to be laden with bacteria - is this wrong?
I have a similar usage pattern, and in the wake of this article I've been pondering how to safely dry my hands before handling contacts. Perhaps paper towels?
From what my optician recommended was to indeed blod them dry with a clean towel each time. But, I am not taking care of them that well, I rub them dry. I am not sure if blodding makes a difference.
It's pretty nice to see her reaction to all of this. Instead of grieving and going around writing blogs blaming people she instead actually set up a successful campaign and is working so that no more people suffer her fate.
Now, this is very refreshing and nice to see, she seems a great person.
This thread is a bit jarring. And I think confirms why normal discussion is nearly impossible online now.
Dissent is expressed by 'affecting' expertise but not actually offering any evidence of expertise ie. I am an eye doctor or I am a researcher in this area or I have some experience in this area, and here is the evidence and informed opinion from the industry and research.
Skepticism is backed not by reason or logic but rushing to minimize or rubbish the claims with outrageously baseless innuendo about the author's hygiene and 'personal feelings'.
You can be never too careful when it comes to your eyes, and yet the thread is seemingly full not of dissenters and skeptics but people who apparently don't care.
Since no rational individual responds to risk by ignoring or dismissing them that's not a scientific mindset, it's an irrational mindset overwhelming discussion and debate.
This is a toxic attitude in most cases. What makes it inexcusable is we can all be 110% sure if it affected them personally or their family in the slightest way they would not be rushing to diminish or question the authors hygiene but asking for her help.
To make sterile water, you must do the following:
1. Use a pressure cooker, a hermetically sealed pot or an autoclave. Make sure that the temperature rises above the normal boiling point of water.
2. Fill the cooker with water.
3. Place cooker with water on a heat stove.
4. Boil water for a minimum of 20 minutes.
5. The temperature within the cooker should be maintained at 121 degrees Celsius or 250 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the boiling period.
I knew a guy whose PRK surgery was... unsuccessful. It mostly improved his vision, but one eye was always fuzzy. He had to wear sunglasses for an entire year, and kept hoping somehow the eye's inflammation would calm down and things would improve, but nope.
Our eyes are incredible. Whenever we try to improve them, we incur risks. I'm sure glasses are included in this.
This is informative. I often don't dry my hands between washing them and handling my contacts - ironically because I worry about germs from my hand towel ending up in my eye. TIL.
I thought I had pink eye one time, went to the doctor weeks later after it had resolved itself and she said I had scarring from a corneal ulcer. If the scarring had been in the center of my eye as opposed to the corner, I might have lost vision. Was related to contacts.
More to the OP: Contact fluid has disinfectant in it, is it a solution to put a drop of it on the contact (inside) before putting it on? So any bad things that might get stuck under there are killed.
Well, my hypochondria just kicked in. Taking my contacts out and working in glasses this afternoon since I ran out of my hydrogen peroxide solution last night and used regular no-rub solution in an old case (which I rinsed with solution before hand).
The CDC puts the rate of AK infection at 1-33 per million contact lens wearers, in case that makes anyone feel better. Still, it's something people should be aware exists.
> Research suggests the density of pain receptors in the cornea is 300-600 times greater than skin and 20-40 times greater than dental pulp,[14] making any injury to the structure excruciatingly painful.[15]
The eye is also immune privileged [1], so whatever you do get in there is bound to spread extremely fast. So maybe the idea is being able to feel that earlier?
Contact lenses are pretty much an impossible proposition. We can't get healthcare professionals to always correctly sanitize their hands, what chance do contact lens users (many of them teenagers) have of only handling their lenses and eye after sanitizing their hands, always sanitizing the lenses themselves in the proper, new solution and changing them on the right timescale?
And if you fail at any of these steps and get an infection, you are pretty much not going to come out of it without permanent damage of some sorts. You basically need to immediately get to an ophthalmologist and apply the proper eye drops, because even after a day you could have enough scarring to partially lose vision or increase sensitivity to light.
I'd guess pain receptors == ability to locate and limit damage.
With leprosy, sufferers lack the ability to feel when they've injured themselves, they end up tearing the flesh off their limbs and breaking the feet down to a pulp through accidents as they can't tell they've injured themselves.
If you don't feel the piece of sand in your eye, then you're going to carry on damaging the eye until you do feel it. At which point, with minimal pain receptors the eye is likely damaged beyond recovery.
I had a scratched cornea recently, the scratch enabled an infection to take hold very rapidly.
I wear hard gas-permeable lenses, and AFAIK those have to be washed with water as well as some detergent and then rinsed with water. Does anyone know if all the article says applies to hard lenses too?
For those who don't know the difference, hard gas-permeable lenses are more like a piece of hard plastic than a gel like substance, they can't dry out.
So my habit of doing a martial arts class with contacts, showering at the gym with them in, and then continuing the rest of the day or evening with the same pair of daily contact lenses is a significant risk to my well-being? I need to bring an extra pair and switch them out after my shower, making sure to wash and dry my hands beforehand?
If I hadn't chosen from an early age to accept the stigma of wearing glasses over the hassle of using contacts, this would make me nope the fuck out of using contacts even if it meant having to use the lamest, most Steve Urkel glasses they had.
Quite hellish. I've done all of the no-no's in here many times in my youth (passing out and peeling lens off the next morning, washing in tap water etc) and must be lucky.
I wonder if those corneal scrapes are safe though.
What an ignorant statement. Vinegar is safe to drink... but I don't think you'd want to rinse your contact with it. And maybe educate yourself before posting such a coment. The amoeba that causes this can indeed live in tap water...
Vinegar is an acid. You said if it's safe to drink it's safe to rinse your lenses with. I'm pretty sure your cornea will be damaged if you rinse your lense with vinegar and stick it in your eye. So your point that if it's safe to drink it's safe to rinse a contact lense with is patently false.
More to the point, your stomach has acid that can kill microorganisms in tap water. Your eye has no such defense.
That would make sense. Water tanks would be breeding grounds for the amoeba.
(The UK housing stock is slowly converting over to plumbing that eliminates the water tanks, but lots of older housing will still have a water tank in the loft somewhere.)
This is a bit of misinformation that is currently still on the packaging for gas permeable lenses- not the same as soft lenses. I personally know a number of hard lens wearers who contracted AK after following these instructions to rinse their lenses in tap water. I am campaigning to get this advice changed as soon as possible. Would love some support.
You forgot to list step 4 which is to put the lense in the disinfecting solution. We're talking about rinsing the lens with tap water before placing into the eye.
They also specifically state NOT to use tap water:
"Never rinse your lenses in water from the tap.
Tap water contains many impurities that can contaminate or damage your lenses and may lead to eye infection or injury."
4 Place lenses in empty lens case and fill with fresh Boston ADVANCE Comfort Formula Conditioning Solution. Soak lenses for at least four (4) hours (or overnight) before wearing. Always use fresh solution for soaking and storing lenses.
So it's not stick tap water in your eyes so much as rinse them with tap water then soak in disinfectant for four hours.
Which solution are you using? Fellow contacts user here (monthlies), I'm looking at the side of my B&L bottle and it says to use nothing besides the solution.
"I selectively quote from my cleaning solution bottle and leave off the MOST IMPORTANT STEP." Way to science it up in here. We've been schooled, for sure.
Why did you chose to ignore the point 4 of the instructions after reciting the first thee points? The point that completely removes all residue from the tap water.
Yep, the way I read that is to rinse the lenses in water after cleaning them.
Horrid.
Glad I ditched using my own lenses now in favour of glasses. I still have a good supply of them .. just never liked the poking around in the eye business.
I know it might not persuade you, but I just recently learned of a good friend that has some scaring from an infection from contact lenses. When I sent him this link he said a coworker of his just got an eye infection also. That being said this is all anecdotal. I would love to see a more definitive study though on this.
That isn't what the story said. I think the issue is that your gut and digestive system may cope with parasites, bacteria and the amoeba that causes AK - the eyes defence mechanism will be different
You're either trolling, or you didn't think this through. People can do all kinds of potentially dangerous things for an extended period of time without negative consequences (heroin, football, diet pills, etc). Extrapolating anything based solely on your own survival is weird.
Moreover, the infection being discussed in this article is incredibly rare - and contact lenses are generally quite safe - so the fact that neither you nor anyone else commenting here has been exposed to it shouldn't be surprising. That you've made it 7 whole years without going blind isn't some vindication of your own hygienic patterns, or an indictment of hers.
You pretty much have to have a corneal abrasion (scratch) before introducing the eye to water. It's not something you're going to get randomly from taking a shower or swimming. However, wearing contacts regularly for the last twenty years, I tend to get an abrasion once every two years or so. I'm extra careful during these times..
In 2001, there were about 7 cases in the US per year. It took me 6 months of excruciating pain and three eye doctors just to diagnose it. Luckily the third doctor really knew what he was doing. He diagnosed it in about 2-3 visits, snuck me some non-FDA approved drops with chlorine in them, and got rid of the infection.
I had to do a corneal transplant and still can't see very well out of it - cloudy with an astigmatism too large to correct.
Here's a good resource: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3972779/