Question:

I'm confused about sleeping with contacts on?

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I'v taken 1-3 hour long naps with my contacts in before. I've recently read that doing this, your eyes could already begin to grow blood vessels. I just examined my eye myself and I'm confused. I have red lines at the top of my eyeball which is just under my top lid. Are those blood vessels? How are blood vessels suppose to look like when they are caused from lack of oxygen?

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8 ANSWERS


  1. It's generally not a good idea to wear them overnight, but for naps it's OK


  2. Probably the best reason to  avoid sleeping with contacts in is that it increases your risk for a corneal ulcer.  I tell my patients who wear contacts to avoid sleeping with them in and to clean them daily with an approved solution.

    The "new blood vessels" you mention would be very small blood vessels in your cornea, the clear area on the front of your eye.  Those vessels can arise from chronic irritation.  The blood vessels you saw are probably normal ones on the white part of your eye, which are present in everybody.

    Generally if you note new discomfort or eye redness in the setting of contact lens wear, you should see an eye doctor.

    -an ophthalmology resident

  3. Your contacts should not be slept in !, they do not contain enough oxygen.

  4. If it is soft lenses it is safe but only for naps as you should take them out for the nighttime and do not sleep with them at night.

  5. Sleeping in your contacts deprives your eyes of oxygen, so new blood vessels will grow, trying to get oxygen to the front of your eye.  This is bad because these vessels are very weak and prone to leakage and breaking.  

    You naturally have blood vessels in the white part of your eye (sclera), though, which is okay.  If you notice any vessels in the colored part of your eye (iris), this is bad and you should see a doctor.  

    Your optometrist checks your eyes thoroughly at each eye exam you have, so as long as you are getting check-ups you should be fine.  Everyone falls asleep in his or her contacts sometimes (even me, and I'm an optometry student ;) ), so don't worry about it too much.  Just make sure you take them out when you know you are going to sleep, and get regular eye exams.

    p.s. Contacts may drift around in your eye and get under your eyelid, but they cannot get behind your eye, so don't worry about that.

  6. dont do it.....i used to and got lots of infections.....ask your doctor about the kind you can sleep in...or get lasik....

  7. When contact lenses are over worn, the cornea has been starved for oxygen during overnight wear. This oxygen deprivation stimulates the growth of new blood vessels  into the cornea where blood vessels usually do not exist. The farther into the cornea they grow, the more problematic they can be. When the contact lens wear is stopped, the blood vessel growth stops, but the vessels themselves remain, though the blood within them may disappear - so called ghost vessels. Depending on the severity thereof, resuming contact lens wear may not be possible.

    When it is in the first stage you will just look like you haven't had enough sleep, a little redness in your eyes. When it gets really bad it will look like your veins is growing over each other towards the pupil. And it's very very visible, it looks really bad. When my eye doctor told me that was happening to me and showed me how it will look if I don't stop wearing my lenses for such long times a day as I did, I almost got a heart attack. But because it was in the beginning stage, I just had to wear my lenses for much shorter periods during the day. What also helps is to avoid putting your lenses in the moment you wake up in the morning, wait for half an hour so the swelling from the sleep can go away. That is also good to do before you go to bed at night, take them out a while before going to bed, this will ensure that you don't have such a lack of oxygen. Oh, and go see your eye doctor just to make sure that you can still wear lenses. Good luck!

  8. You shouldn't do that because the contacts can on under your eyelids and you can lose them in your eye. That would be really bad

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