It is quite habitual to doze off with your contact lenses still in. In the beginning, you may not notice a negative consequence of this, even though your eye doctor my berate you a bit for sleeping without removing your contacts first. The truth of the matter is that sleeping with your contact lenses in is not a one-time offense that immediately provokes consequence. It is the accumulated effect of many nights of sleeping with your contact lenses still in that triggers the damage to your eyes.
While you may be already feeling that your contact lens is a part of you, the practical reality is that the contact lens is still a foreign object and may take a big piece of time for your body to acclimatize to it. In fact, your body is not too hospitable when it comes to any foreign object – sometimes our body even disposes of the foreign object including drugs as intruders. Contact lenses is of the same equivalence as a drug according to the FDA (Food and Health Agency). This is why just like any side effect of a drug, an extended use of a contact lens can bring repercussive effects to the eyes. There have been cases of contact lens after sustained usage burning the eye or drying the eye up.
Getting into the deeper details, your tears aren’t any common fluid. Tears are composed of a distinct acidic capacity. So if the contact lens you are bringing on board has a different pH capacity, things may not go well. Basically, oxygen is a vital requirement of your eyes for its fluent functionality. So when you sleep, it is normal to shut your eyes. This chops down the quantity of oxygen being fed to your eyes. The situation gets uglier when you have a contact lens on in your sleep. This exacerbates the reduction of oxygen reaction supplied to your cornea. The effect of a deficiency of oxygen supply to the eyes can result in the formation of disturbing blood vessels in the cornea. This adjustment, which is a health dysfunction, would now compensate for the reduction in oxygen (prompted by the contact lenses you still have in when you sleep). This condition is termed corneal neovascularization and is definitely not the best your eyes.
The dangers of sleeping with contact lenses in spill past just corneal neovascularization. When you wear contact lenses through the night, you may suffer strain in your eyes culminating in a painful redness. Sometimes there is a multiplied sensitivity of your eyes to colors.
These situations are not the best for your eyes. Obviously, your eyes are one of the best biological assets you have. So just do what your doctor recommends and remove your contact lenses before sleeping at night. You may not know it now, but in the future you’ll sure be glad you made a habit of removing your contact lenses before sleep.
