Woman warns of dangers of sleeping in contact lenses after being left with permanent scarring
If you're prone to sleeping in your contact lenses, this woman's experience will make you think twice about doing so.
It's estimated that nearly one in six Americans wear contact lenses, so it's likely that Sara Chambers isn't the only one to have slept in them.
Whether you forgot to take them out after one too many tequilas, or simply fallen asleep by accident - we've all done it.
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But Sara's ordeal will definitely have you reaching for your solutions at every opportunity because you don't want to end up in the same position she did.
Taking to her TikTok page (@sarammchambers), Sara has now gone viral after sharing her horrifying experience.
"If you need a reason to not ever sleep in your contacts, let me be the reason," she begins the clip.
Wearing a pair of glasses and normal sunglasses at the same time, Sara goes on to explain that she has an eye ulcer and, because she doesn't have any prescription shades, she has to wear both glasses at once while her eye heals.
Further explaining what happened to her, Sara proceeds to share a photo of her angry-looking eye.
Initially thinking it was pink eye, she went down the route of using medications that would usually clear such a condition - but to no avail. Sara later learned that she had an ulcer on her pupil.
"So, you might be wondering what causes an ulcer," Sara goes on.
"Well, I found out today and it's even more terrifying.
"Basically, when you wear contacts, they're constantly causing microscopic little scratches on your eye, but if you take them out at night, your eyes have 10 to 12 hours (or however long) to heal."
She continued to explain: "You eyes heal really, really fast, but if you never take your contacts out, they never have time to heal and bacteria can get in there and cause an ulcer. It's basically bacteria eating your eye."
Sara said that the ulcer will scar and cause permanent damage to her eye and, had she left it just another day without proper treatment, her doctor said there's a likelihood she'd have needed a cornea transplant.
In light of this, the TikToker doubled down on her advice on not sleeping in your contact lenses.
As well as an eye ulcer, sleeping with your contact lenses in can lead to different types of infections, according to the Sleep Foundation.
These infections can include bacterial keratitis, acanthamoeba keratitis and fungal keratitis and could lead to vision loss or blindness.
Long story short, take your contacts out at night guys.
Niamh Shackleton