Contact lenses, despite being one of the most convenient tools for the eyes, can cause major problems if not used carefully.
As lenses require extra effort while travelling and sleeping, the one place where you must avoid wearing the contacts is during swimming.
Although it is a tedious task to remove lens before any water-related activity, it should be something that you need to add in your daily practice to avoid major risk of infections.
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Any water body such as pool or sea contains several types of fungi, which can get trapped under the contacts, causing extremely harmful eye infections.
Along with the risk of vision-threatening infection, water can also cause contacts to change up shape and stick on the eye, causing irritation.
The disinfectants commonly found in pool water can also cause problems as chlorine or bromine could soak into the contact lenses, prompting redness and blurriness.
Furthermore, the most dangerous bacteria Acanthamoeba attached itself to the contact, causing cornea to become infected and inflamed, which could result in permanent vision loss or require a corneal transplant.
With people without the lenses, tears usually help in the washing out of the chemicals from the eyes but with contact lenses as barrier it does not do its job entirely.
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To avoid such harmful risks, the safest option if you need vision assistance during swimming, is to take up prescription googles or soak the lenses in contact solution for 24 hours if you do end up using them while swimming.
