Miss Ashley Pants

Ever slept in contact lenses?

And then you wake up? And it feels like the tooth fairy came in your sleep but instead of giving you dollars for your dentin, she just used her own to eat your eyes? Today we’ll learn that eye-eating is indeed exactly what’ll happen if you leave in your lenses for half a year.

Like this Taiwanese chick who kept hers in for six months.

What happened wasn’t just that she simply got a bacterial infection.

I mean, that did happen. But the bacteria was actually just the start. After her eyes were blocked of oxygen by the contacts for long enough, the tissue started to die off, presenting ideal eye real-estate for bacteria. But the real problem wasn’t that. In fact, I’ve gotten bacterial eyeball infections from wearing my contacts while sleeping for several nights on hospital furniture to help with my mom’s post-op recovery.

It wasn’t that big of a deal.

Between work and chronic other-problems, I still went the optometrist, got some drops, and cried and overly complained about how the moderate stinging felt like a potato peeler was being taken to my eyes each time I was forced to dropped ’em in.

Then I was better in a week or three.

But if I had left them in for too long and not seen a doctor, I might have ended up falling victim to an amoeba that pops up when your defenses are down…. and feasts on those bacteria now residing in your eye. This is really gross. It starts on the surface, but then as it fills up on the superficial creatures, it eats its way into your eye like the bunny from Hop eating through his licorice confines to save himself. Haven’t seen that movie? Too bad – because you never will, now that the amoeba has nommed his way into your glazzies and left you blind.

Certainly there are people who have left in their lenses for too long and been alright, but this young lady probably didn’t help out her own situation by going swimming in her contact lenses. Since this particular amoeba (acanthamoeba) is present in swimming pools, this raised her chances of introducing it significantly.

Ya know, at the start of this story, I sort of felt badly for her. I mean, her reasoning was that she was under pressure from work. I get that. Burning the candle and both ends makes for eye-burn. But wouldn’t at least the few hours you sleep be better than zero rest time for your viewing organs? Plus – how do you not say “Eh… I should probably see a medical professional… while I can still see at all” with signs like these going on?

(“Dreadfully sorry… Just looking for my glasses. Are they over there perchance?”)

I’m gonna hafta say this isn’t just a case of “didn’t have enough time” – even if she is the type to pass out on her laptop. ‘cause if she had time to go swimming, that means she had time to take out her contacts and rest her eyes for an hour or two. I appreciate that it’s hard and unjust and the world’s cruel and we should’ve all been born with 20/20 vision. But laziness doesn’t alter reality’s harshness (trust me, I’ve tried). So, until the day you can afford Lasik (which is the 35th of Neverember for me), you’ll just have to settle for cleaning your contacts.

Also, don’t sleep in them.

And if the eyes in the mirror look like Mordor, see a doc double quick.