Never wear your lenses for longer than you have been told to, and not for more than 16 hours in a day. Most importantly, you should never sleep in them, unless specifically designed for wearing overnight. If you are letting your lenses accumulate for weeks, there is a news report for you that will either make you cringe or have you speechless.
Katerina quoted saying to a journal “It had been a manic Monday at the clinic with eye emergencies that had come up over the weekend, in addition to our routine appointments. Toward the end of the day, a patient in her mid-70s who wore daily contact lenses came in saying she felt she had something in her eye that she couldn't get out.”
She went on to add: “Even though we asked seniors to come in once a year for checkups, this woman had skipped appointments and hadn’t been to the office in two years. Although her vision was blurry, it was the pain that bothered her most.”
“My mind jumped to the possibilities of what it could be: a piece of broken contact lens, a scratch on the cornea, an infection, an eyelash, or debris from makeup. I'd only know for sure once I did the examination. When I asked her to look down, I could see the edges of a couple of contacts stuck to each other. Pulling them out, I felt like I could still see more and asked my assistant to get my phone to record the removal”, she signed off.
Interestingly, the patient herself cannot realize how she could forget to take her lenses out so many days in a row.
The patient could have lost her vision, scratched her cornea, or gotten an infection. Thanks to Katerina , she got back her eyes.
Meanwhile, the video of the procedure, which was also posted on Instagram, has since gone viral - garnering 3.2 million views since it was posted.