It can be easy to forget and leave your contacts in overnight.
A quarter of Australian contact lens wearers will accidentally leave their contacts in overnight at least once a fortnight, placing them at an increased risk of eye ulcers and sight threatening infections. What can happen if you don’t wear your contact lenses as they were intended? Falling asleep with your soft contact lenses in leads to oxygen starvation of your cornea, the clear tissue of the eye that you place your contact lens on. Hence, your eyes are put at a much higher risk of infections, ulcers and other serious diseases.
Upon waking with contacts left in overnight, you might feel dryness or discomfort, increased sensitivity to light and you might see that the white parts of your eye appear more red than usual, as well as experience increased discharge or ‘sleep’ in your eyes.
If you’re having any trouble or issues with your contact lenses, or you find yourself accidentally sleeping in them often, we recommend you visit us. The simplest way to avoid issues with contact lenses is to follow the hygiene and handling requirements of lenses and cleaning instructions very closely, and to have regular eye health check-ups.
