What Happens When You Sleep in Your Contact Lenses
You've likely fallen asleep with your lenses a couple of times if you're like one-third of people who wear contact lenses. Your eyes may have been slightly dry when you first woke up. However, the risk of eye infection increases six to eight times when you sleep with your contacts.
It is vital to know what infections can happen, why sleeping with contacts raises your risk of getting infected, and what to do if you unintentionally doze off wearing contacts.
Sleeping while wearing contacts is risky. According to experts, wearing contacts while sleeping increases your chances of having a corneal infection. This is an infection of the transparent layer that surrounds your colored portion of the eye. Wearing even one contact lens overnight increases your likelihood of developing microbial keratitis. This is an infection-related type of corneal inflammation. This risk exists regardless of whether you are wearing decorative, hard, soft, or prescription lenses. Unfortunately, both adult and teenage contact lens wearers frequently sleep with their lenses in. Ensure you always take them off before bed because occasionally or unintentionally sleeping in your lens can raise your risk of infection that may cause serious damage to your eyes.
