A few years ago, my dear maternal grandmother visited an optometrist. After thoroughly examining my grandmother’s eyes, this medical professional informed her that she had cataracts in both of them. Concerned, my grandmother immediately made an appointment with a surgeon. The two surgeries to remove the cataracts from my grandmother’s eyes were successful. Scheduling annual eye exams is crucial. During these appointments, your optometrist will check for potentially harmful conditions such as cataracts, glaucoma, retinal detachment, nearsightedness, and farsightedness. On this blog, I hope you will discover the most important reasons you should visit your eye doctor every year. Enjoy!
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Three Reasons Why You Should NEVER Put Your Eye Contacts In Your Mouth
Stella Harvey
Keeping your eye contacts moist is a common problem among contact lens wearers. However, some of the things people do to moisten their lenses is often met with reproach by optometrists, and with good reason. For example, removing your contacts and putting them in your mouth before reinserting them into your eyes is definitely NOT a good idea. Here are three reasons why you should never moisten your lenses by putting them in your mouth.
Bacteria--the Number One Cause of Eye Infections
Your mouth is full of bacteria. It does not matter if you just brushed your teeth and gargled with antiseptic, there is still plenty of bacteria in your mouth. Placing your contacts in your mouth allows all of that bacteria to collect on your lenses before you reinsert them into your eyes. Because your eyes are the perfect place for bacteria to grow (i.e., moist, often dark with mucous membranes present), you just used your contacts to turn your eyes into a petri dish. If you find that you have frequent eye infections, moistening your contacts with your mouth may be the reason why.
Herpes
As unpleasant as it sounds, you can transfer a herpes virus from your mouth to your eyes. The result is herpes keratitis, and inflammation of your corneas that flares and wanes at random and creates scar tissue when you rub. Is that a risk you really want to take with your contacts? There is no real cure for this type of virus either, so once you put it in your eyes, there it stays. As such, you may have to incur added expenses because your optometrist may want you to wear daily disposable lenses rather than extended wear soft contacts or hard contacts.
You Can Swallow the Lenses
Contacts are not large items, nor are they rough items. They are easily swallowed by accident, and then where would you be? Without your lense(s) for most of the day and no way to see clearly, you would need to figure out how to finish work and get home with blurry vision. Additionally, if the lenses you place in your mouth are hard lenses, these can break apart and cause small cuts and perforations in your esophagus and stomach. The related dangers and risks are not worth putting your lenses in your mouth--use a saline solution or rewetting drops instead, as prescribed by your optometrist.
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