With contact lenses, you can get excellent vision correction and comfortable fit. But contacts aren't risk-free — especially if you don't clean and store them properly.
Here are some pointers on safe disinfection, storage and handling of contact lenses, followed by a rundown of contact lens types.
:: Avoiding eye infections
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Anatomy of your eye
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Wearing contact lenses increases your risk of corneal infection. Some of the added risk is unavoidable: All types of contact lenses reduce the amount of oxygen that reaches your cornea — the clear tissue that lies over the pupil and iris — and less oxygen can promote infection.
This reduction in corneal oxygen makes proper cleaning and disinfection all the more important.
Here are some tips:
__ Use multipurpose contact lens solutions with caution. While these combination cleaning-disinfectant-storage solutions are convenient, two brands have been withdrawn from the market because they've been linked to serious eye. In 2005 and 2006, 130 contact-lens wearers who regularly used Bausch & Lomb's ReNu with MoistureLoc solution developed Fusarium keratitis, a fungal infection of the cornea, prompting that brand's recall. A year later, in 2007, Advanced Medical Optics voluntarily recalled its Complete MoisturePlus solution, which was implicated in 138 cases of Acanthamoeba keratitis, a parasitic infection of the cornea.
__ Choose daily-wear contacts, and take them out before you go to sleep. Infections are more common with extended-wear contacts, worn continuously, than with daily-wear contacts.
__ Wash, rinse and dry your hands thoroughly before handling your contacts.
__ Follow your eye-care professional's instructions for taking care of your lenses. Make sure you use lens-care products formulated for the type of lenses you wear.
__ Replace your contact lenses as recommended. If one or both lenses bother you before you're due to replace them, get them checked or try a new set — if you have a supply.
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:: Types of contact lenses
Contact lenses are made of many different types of plastic, but in general, they fall into two main groups: soft contact lenses and gas-permeable contact lenses.
::_ Soft contact lenses
These thin, gel-like lenses conform to the shape of your eye. They're more flexible than gas-permeable contact lenses, so they're more comfortable and easier to get used to.
Types of soft contact lenses include:
::__ Daily-wear contact lenses. Four out of five people who wear contact lenses choose daily-wear, which are lenses you typically insert every morning and remove every night. They should not be worn during sleep. Properly cleaned and stored, one pair of daily-wear lenses should last up to one year.
::__ Disposable contact lenses. These lenses are designed for short-term use during waking hours. Depending on their composition, disposable lenses may need replacement every day — you throw them away after wearing them once — or at longer intervals, up to three months. Most brands are good to wear for two weeks.
::__ Extended-wear contact lenses. Because they're designed to provide adequate oxygen to your cornea even while you sleep, you can wear these lenses continuously — for up to seven days with standard extended-wear contact lenses, and all the way up to 30 days with lenses made of superpermeable silicone hydrogel. The 30-day lenses are somewhat stiffer and less comfortable than the seven-day lenses. Also, 30-day lenses may get scratched more easily and have less clarity than do lenses removed every seven days.
::_ Gas-permeable contact lenses
Gas-permeable contact lenses are generally made of harder plastic materials that don't contain water. Although they aren't as flexible as soft contacts, gas-permeable lenses allow more oxygen to pass through to the cornea than do soft lenses, reducing the risk of corneal irritations.
Gas-permeable lenses can correct a wide range of vision problems, including astigmatism, which is a type of blurred vision caused by an irregularly shaped cornea. After a short period of adaptation, most people can wear gas-permeable lenses comfortably. Gas-permeable lenses are easy to care for, and they're less likely to cause infection and more durable than soft lenses.
Gas-permeable lenses need to be replaced less frequently than do soft contact lenses and may be worn, on average, for two to three years.
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