Topics: Health, World News, Podcast
A doctor has spoken out in warning about a habit which could 'permanently' impact your vision.
Before I made the decision to get my eyes zapped with a laser and my nose hit with the waft of burning eyeballs - I promise it's not that bad and it's the best decision I've ever made in my life - I used to pop little pieces of plastic in to make sure I never accidentally waved back at a stranger on the street mistakenly thinking they were greeting me.
And given our eyes are one of our most important and sensitive organs, wearing contact lenses comes with a fair few warnings and rules - one of which is crucial to follow because if you ignore it too much you could even risk 'los[ing] your eyeball'.
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Speaking on the Am I Doing it Wrong podcast, ophthalmologist and assistant professor at Oregon Health & Science University’s Casey Eye Institute, Dr. Amanda Redfern spoke about the importance of eye health.
Most notably, she highlighted some of the most important things to remember if you tend to wear contact lenses.
″[Sleeping with contact lenses in your eyes] is bad. It’s real bad. Don’t do it,” she said.
“It’s like a game of Russian roulette.”
Dr Redfern explained sleeping in your contacts can increase the risk of you developing a corneal ulcer - an infection on part of the eye that a contact covers.
And an infection can just be the start of all the issues that will follow.
Redfern continued: “It’s not going to happen every time, but when it happens, it’s terrible.
“It can be so bad you could, in really terrible cases, lose your eyeball.”
In the less severe situations... you could still 'permanently' impact your vision.
She said: “If that scar is in the center of your vision, that could affect your vision permanently, unless you get a corneal transplant."
Beyond this, she emphasized it's important to keep contact lenses as clean as possible and not wear them during activities that could jeopardize or contaminate them.
This included things like swimming in a pool, lake or even wearing them while showering.
She explained: “The problem with contact lenses is that it will sandwich bacteria between the lens and your cornea, and you can get infected and then have all the complications we talked about.
“In general, we frown upon anything where your eye is going to expose to something non-sterile.”
