Contact Lenses

Is it bad to wear contacts daily?

So, you have decided to pop contact lenses on your special day. You cannot hamper your appearances with your usual not-so-happening glasses frames, after all. Glasses hide your make-up (or your natural good looks in the case of men). Wearing contacts for a special occasion is a good idea. If you are not wearing them for too long, you can use them. At most, you can wear contacts for 14–16 hours. And for daily use, you should wear glasses. Why? Because wearing contact lenses causes the following side effects.

Limited Oxygen for your Eyes

Unless you are wearing gas-permeable contact lenses, you are blocking oxygen supply to your eyes. Contact lenses are in direct contact with your eyes and cover most of them for hours. If you are wearing contacts, don’t wear them for too long. Oxygen is crucial for your eyes to keep them healthy for long.

Dry Eyes

Contact lenses need moisture to stick to your eyes. The contacts absorb the tears to stay soft to keep sticking to your cornea. This makes your eyes dry increasingly. Plus, working on computers causes dry eyes because of blue lights. Wearing blue light blocking glasses can help in reducing dry eyes. You can use these glasses at work.

There are blue light blocking contact lenses too that you can use while working on computers. These prevent blue light emissions and give you a strain-free vision. However, with your hectic work, wearing contacts is more than a hassle. You have to be careful when you wear contacts. You cannot rub your eyes as they will take them off. Also, this can cause abrasion in your cornea leading to infection.

For women, contacts pose another issue. Hormonal imbalance causes your eyes to get dry. Adding contact lenses to the ratio make your experience even more irritable. This can further aggravate your eyes condition. You might get burning eyes, feel some gritty substance in your eyes.

Slow Reflex of Eyes

Have you noticed when you first tried to put on your contacts, your eyelids would close? You had to take help from others. Even then, your eyelids would tremble as the contact lenses were anywhere near your eyes.

This happens because of the natural reflex action of your eyes. Contacts are foreign substances. Your brain reflexively tries to protect your eyes just as you shield your eyes with your hands when a bright light is flashed upon you.

When you start using contacts daily, you are conditioning your eyelids not to react when you put them over the cornea. This diminishes the natural corneal reflexes.

When your reaction time diminishes, your eyes are prone to injury. Dirt particles can enter your eyes and cause infection.

Wear and Tear of Cornea

If you are careless, then you should definitely not wear contacts. Sleeping with contacts still in your eyes can cause infection.

When your cornea is excessively dry, contacts can scratch your eyes. This can give you corneal abrasion, which can cause inflammation in your eyes. Your eyes appear red and teary.

Contacts are Not for Everyone

You cannot wear contact lenses if you have a sensitive cornea. With astigmatism, you will need toric lenses or scleral lenses. Regular lenses do not improve your vision. Scleral lenses are slightly bigger lenses that cover the sclera (white part) of your eyes. These are gas permeable and allow oxygen to pass through. However, wearing them for hours will give you dry eyes.

And the need to be conscious all the time, with these tiny things on, is not possible for most.

Glasses are Hassle-free and Stylish Too

The only advantage that contacts have over glasses is that they do not impact your look. Glasses frames are very loud on your face. If you are a glasses wearer, you will be referred to as the one with glasses. You are remembered by your classmates as the glasses guy. The glasses tag stay on you. But if you wear stylish glasses frames, you can change from Bob, the glasses guy, to Bob, the fashionista.

With prescription glasses, you do not have to be too careful. You can sleep on with your eyeglasses. Your frames will get slightly askew, but it will not impact your eyes.