Your eyes are irreplaceable. And if you don’t take care of them, things can get hard to fix (with lots of inconvenience in the meantime). If eyes are so important, why do an estimated 98% of contact lens wearers fail to take care of things properly? From cleaning to safe use, most people are missing one or more steps for safe usage and eye care, which lands them at the doctor with irritation, scratches, and infections.
The biggest problems shouldn’t be a surprise, although you may grimace seeing one of your own habits. Sleeping in contact lenses increases your risk of infection by a factor of six, not throwing them away and changing to new ones increases the chance of infection even more (and never mind doing both!). Another huge risk is not cleaning contacts, both rinsing them and changing solution (cases need to be thrown away every few months same as your toothbrush). And with every disease, handwashing plays a huge role. Washing your hands before touching your contacts or eyes can help prevent infections (and that extends to cold and flu, since winter is coming up).
Another common mistake is swimming or showering in contacts. They facilitate infections, including parasitic infections.
If your eye feels scratched and doesn’t heal after a couple hours closed (or overnight) see a doctor to make sure there’s nothing still in it (and they’ll probably ask when the last time you changed your contacts was, and if you sleep in them).
Itching redness could be the start of an infection. For a quick fix, remember that colloidal silver has a long history of use for eye infections (until antibiotics were invented and were cheaper, it was used at birth to prevent eye infection in babies). Use it to support your immune system, and as targeted support for your eyes to help you with your bad habits (the faster you get on top of symptoms the better chance you’ll nip the infection in the bud).
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