Is sleeping with contact lenses safe?

Wearing Contact lenses is safe as long as wearers properly follow the indications of the optometrist in relation to the safe handling and proper care. However, the risk of eye infections increases when wearers don’t properly care for their contacts or when contact lenses care indications are neglected. Sleeping with contact lenses, in particular, is one of those critical actions that increase the risk of eye infection. Most Optometrists do not recommend sleeping with contact lenses, for the simple reason that, the risk of getting an eye infection would dramatically increase compared to conventional daily wear mode.

Many studies have proved that sleeping with contact lenses has unpleasant consequences and reactions. Among those reactions are dryness, eye redness, feeling of irritation, blurred vision, as well as the secretion of amounts of yellow-green mucus that are soft or dry and accumulate either inside or at the circumference of the eyelids. The mucus secretion is the result of debris of protein and other stuff being discharged in response to hypoxia, edema, and swelling. In all cases, if accidentally a patient slept with the lenses I recommend excessively soaking the eyes with artificial tears eye drops to rehydrate the lenses before taking them out. If lucky enough, all those reactions would occur without being accompanied by pain. Otherwise, pain is a sign that the cornea has been infected and it needs immediate intervention and an urgent checkup. If not treated quickly –obviously by Antibiotics- this can transform into a major issue that can go beyond irritation or blurred vision, but it can sometimes lead to the eating of the cornea like in the case of Pseudomonas infection.  

Thankfully, extended wear contact lenses have saved a lot of these troubles since they have been developed and introduced in the market a decade ago. Extended wear contact lenses have been FDA approved for overnight wear and they served as bandage contact lenses as well. Extended wear contacts are employed after PRK surgery. Accompanied with antibiotic eye drops to help prevent possible infection they need to be carefully followed up by the eye doctor.

Extended wear contact lenses are prescribed by optometrists after a thorough assessment of the patient’s eye and proper follow-up. But the best part of extended wear contact lenses is that they reduced the risk of infection caused by sleeping with the lenses by four to five times than with ordinary daily wear lenses. And that is due to their high DK/t ensuring enough oxygen transmissibility and allowing the oxygen to get to the surface of the cornea.