Is it ok to wear contacts in the pool?!
Question:
Is it ok to wear contacts in the pool?
best answer to the most helpful
Answers:
Hello there! This is my favorite question to answer !!!
No you shouldn't wear your contacts in the pool...
-they can get flushed out of your eyes
-The pool chemicals getting into your contacts could damage your contacts and irritate or harm your eyes.
I have one more major reason not to wear contacts into a swimming pool.... Its called ACANTHAMOEBA!!!
Water is known to contain an ameba called Acanthamoeba. If this microbe attaches itself to your contact lens it can cause a very bad infection called Acanthamoeba keratitis. This infection is hard to treat and in serious cases it can cause loss of vision. So best thing to do is not expose your contacts to tap/fresh water at all!
So this means no swimming in them!
Just to reinforce the seriousness of this infection check out these pictures of eyes infected with acanthamoeba keratitis ( if you have a weak stomach then you may not want to)
http://www.swmed.edu/home_pages/ophth/im...
http://www.infectiousdiseasenews.com/199...
http://www.oftalmo.com/sco/revista-09/f1...
If you have very poor vision you may want to consider prescription goggles... or the use of daily disposables that you can just throw out and put in fresh ones after you swim!
Anyways I posted some links with more info about swimming and contact lens wear!!! Hopefully this helps :)
