But severe eye pain, visual impairment or even blindness are too high a price to pay for saving a few minutes on your morning routine. Optometrists highly recommend removing your contact lenses before showering.
The risk of developing a serious eye infection is all too real. In developed countries, tap water is disinfected of dangerous germs before it reaches your home. Providers use water treatment methods such as UV technology, ozone technology and a good dose of chlorine.
Yet tap water can still contain acanthamoeba. Acanthamoeba is a organism that lives in natural water sources, like lakes, rivers and the sea, and tap water. If acanthamoeba gets into your eye while you're wearing contact lenses you're at risk of contracting acanthamoeba keratitis. You might have heard of acanthamoeba keratitis before.
According to the CDC there are acanthamoeba keratitis infections per million contact lens wearers. If so, not good. Non-sterilized water and contact lenses are like alcohol and texting your ex. They should never mix. Otherwise, bad things could happen. And unless your shower head pumps out almond butter, a shower could easily bring water into contact with whatever is in your eyes. This would be contact lenses if you are wearing them in the shower.
Doing so could end up damaging your contact lenses and, more importantly, your eyes. It could even land you in the New England Journal of Medicine. While doctors and researchers may like to write for the New England Journal of Medicine, you don't want to end up as the subject of a case report. That frequently means that something went horribly wrong.
For example, in a recent case report , Lanxing Fu, M. She began experiencing pain, blurry vision, and sensitivity to light in her left eye. Two months later, doctors saw her at an ophthalmology clinic and found parasites, the result of which was quite a sight that had damaged her eyesight. Here is a picture of what they saw:.
The green in the picture is actually a dye used to highlight any damage to the cornea, the transparent outer covering over the front of the eyeball. Scrapings of her cornea revealed a species of parasite, Acanthamoeba polyphaga, which is commonly found in different water sources such as lakes, swimming pools, tap water, and heating and air conditioning units. Keep that in mind the next time you try to put an air conditioning unit in your eye.
Exposing your contacts to water can cause them to warp or stick to your eye. This can potentially lead to scratches in your cornea corneal abrasion. These scratches can sometimes lead to a non-infectious form of keratitis. However, they can also allow germs that are present in non-sterile water to enter the cornea and establish an infection. A variety of germs can cause microbial keratitis.
Acanthamoeba is a type of amoeba that can be found in a variety of water sources. Acanthamoeba keratitis can be very serious, potentially leading to vision loss or the need for a corneal transplant.
It can also be hard to treat. Other types of germs that may cause microbial keratitis and can potentially be found in some water sources include:. Generally speaking, the symptoms of keratitis are similar across different causes.
This is because excessive temperatures can melt sunglasses. However, when specialised goggles or eye globes are worn, this won't happen. Even if you're lying under a sunbed for up to twenty minutes, wearing either of these items at all times will protect your eyes and contact lenses won't be damaged.
Requiring less water than a bath, many contact lens wearers prefer a shower in order to clean themselves. If you wear contact lenses on a daily basis, you probably keep them in when stood underneath a shower. However, showering while wearing contact lenses is a serious no-no. Not only does this reduce the chance of infection developing but there won't be any concerns regarding them falling out of place.
As freshwater does contain bacteria, this can infect a contact lens but there is a low chance of this happening. If you buy daily disposable contact lenses from Vision Direct, you might prefer to keep them in whilst showering. In this situation, avoid rubbing your eyes and keep them closed at all times. As there is only a small chance of an infection happening, you can keep them in your eyes but Vision Direct do recommend that your shower is only a couple of minutes long.
Before having a shower, contact lenses can also be taken out and put into solution. They can then be put back into an eye afterwards. Swimming whilst wearing contact lenses might seem like a great idea but it can cause a number of problems.
When contact lenses are worn whilst swimming in a pool or the ocean, water can splash in your eyes. If this happens, contact lenses can be dislodged and eyesight becomes blurry again. This situation is very unsettling, largely because you might believe that contact lenses have fallen behind the back of your eye. However, this is impossible because contact lenses aren't able to. When swimming whilst wearing contact lenses, infection can happen to a cornea.
If water splashes into your eye, permanent damage can be caused. Even when a small amount of water gets near your eye, lenses can start to tighten and starve it of oxygen. There are some contact lenses that shouldn't be worn at all when swimming, such as gas permeable GP.
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