Contact Lenses: infection Ready To Happen?

Extended wear contacts.....Ahhh the joy of wearing the same lenses without removing them to clean them for weeks on end.  What a great invention, right?  Wrong.  Extended wear contact lenses are the number one cause for sight- threatening infections.  In fact, one study showed that it is actually safer for you to have LASIK surgery (a one-time procedure) than constantly subjecting your eyes to a foreign body that harbors "bugs." 

As an ophthalmology resident, I used to be routinely called to see a patient (usually on a Friday afternoon at 5:00) with a terrible corneal ulcer from extended wear contacts.  This can be extremely serious, permanently decreasing vision from a resultant scar and sometimes even leads to the need for a corneal transplant. 

Buyers beware of all the hype surrounding the "ease of use" with these lenses.  Probably the safest contact lenses to wear are the daily contacts you throw away at the end of each day.  The problem here is that the lenses are quite expensive, even on 1-800 contacts.  Yes, you save on contact lens solutions but you will ultimately spend much more on the contacts. 

Do yourself a favor and remove your contacts at night.  Clean and store them in a multipurpose solution, and I don't mean saline.  Keep your average wear time to less than 15 hours a day, at the most.  You must have a back-up pair of glasses.  Getting contacts does not absolve you of the need for glasses.  If you get pink eye for example, you may have to come out of the contacts up to two to three weeks or longer.  If you don't have your glasses as back-up, you will be in real trouble!