Caring for your eyes is vital to your health. Eyes are sensitive and fragile, and they can become irritated or damaged easily, resulting in vision issues.
That’s why those who wear glasses and contacts need to be especially careful in ensuring their vision devices are always clean, the right grade, and correct to use.
For those who use contact lenses on a regular basis, using them correctly is paramount, as your ophthalmologist has probably mentioned many times.
It’s pretty common knowledge as well that sleeping in your contacts is just a terrible idea.
Craig Melvin, an anchor with NBC News and MSNBC, should have probably paid a little more attention to his doctors – but that’s a lesson he learned the hard way!
According to Craig, he’s always known that sleeping with your lenses on isn’t great.
But he’d been sleeping in them for a long, long time and had never experienced any trouble from doing so before, so he kept doing it.
Then, one day in August, he started developing high levels of dryness and irritation in his eyes.
He figured it was just seasonal allergies, but a trip to his ophthalmologist revealed otherwise.
One of Craig’s eyes had developed what is called a corneal ulcer, explained simply as a sore that forms on the eye’s surface.
This was caused solely by his bad habit of sleeping in his contact lenses, a habit so bad that his doctor said what he was doing was akin to wearing the same underwear without changing it, ever.
Craig finally understood just how unhygienic his habit of sleeping in his contact lenses was, and he knew he had to change this behavior.
While his eyes healed, though, he had to wear glasses for a few weeks.
He shared his experiences with Today viewers and it wasn’t long before fans’ messages were pouring in, talking about their own eye-related lessons.
Some have suffered damage to their eyes and others have even begun to experience blindness.
Thankfully, Craig’s eyes saw full recovery, but it was a pretty close call.
If he had allowed the ulcer to go without treatment got a week or so longer, he may have wound up with irreparable eye damage.
Now, he is able to wear his contacts again, though he has to be more careful with caring for his eyes now.
If you wear contacts, make sure you’re taking care of them well. You should always wash your hands before putting in or taking out lenses.
All lenses should be thoroughly washed and soaked before you slip them into your eyes, and you should never neglect to dispose of them once they have expired.
If your eyes feel irritated or painful, remove your contacts immediately and wait a day before putting them in again.
Worried about corneal ulcers? Bacterial infections can be responsible for starting them.
Look out for signs and symptoms such as redness, itching, irritation, discharge, tearing up, and vision disturbance.
For serious concerns, be sure to see your doctor!
SEE ALSO:
Mom Wakes Up Blind After A Parasitic Worm Got Stuck Behind Her Contact Lens
