Rigid Contact Lenses

Rigid contact lenses are a popular type of contact lens that are on the market today. If your doctor prescribes rigid contact lenses, you’ll want to be sure to take proper care of them. The most serious safety concern with rigid contact lenses is related to overnight use. Rigid contact lenses are typically extended-wear contact lenses, and if they are worn overnight, they can increase the risk of corneal ulcers, infection-caused eruptions on the cornea that can lead to blindness.

These infections are more prone to happen to people who keep extended-wear lenses in overnight. Overnight wearers of rigid contact lenses are nearly 15 times more likely to experience these corneal ulcers than are those who use daily-wear lenses only while they’re awake.

Rigid Soft Contact Lens

Tears carry adequate oxygen to the cornea, when a person is awake, in order to keep your cornea healthy. But when you’re sleeping, the eye produces fewer tears and causes the cornea to swell. Under the binding down of the rigid contact lenses during sleep, the flow of tears and oxygen to the cornea is reduced. This lack of oxygen leaves the eye vulnerable to infection. These kinds of rigid contact lenses also are known to cause an unexpected reshaping of the cornea.

Whereas soft extended-wear lenses also can bind down on the closed eye, they aren’t as porous as rigid contact lenses. So they allow some tears through during your sleeping periods. Because they have so little form, their binding has little effect on the shape of the eye.

Rigid And Soft Contact Lens

The Food and Drug Administration has approved extended-wear lenses for use up to seven days, before they need to be removed and cleaned. But there are still risks with using extended-wear lenses. Daily-wear lenses are removed daily for cleaning and are a safer choice, as long as they aren’t worn during sleep.

The condition of Acanthamoeba keratitis is another sight-threatening concern. It’s an infection caused by improper lens care. This is a difficult-to-treat parasitic infection, and its symptoms are similar to those of corneal ulcers. Make sure you use store-bought saline solution to try to lower your risk for this disease. Homemade saline solutions often cause this problem. Microorganisms may also be present in distilled water. So you should always use commercial sterile saline solutions to dissolve enzyme tablets. Heat disinfection is the only method effective against these infections, and it also kills organisms in and on the lens case.