Is it ok to wear cotacts longer than the recommended throw out date?!


Question: Is it ok to wear cotacts longer than the recommended throw out date?
I wear the soft 2 month disposable lenses

Answers:

Absolutely, I've been wearing 2wk contacts for about 6 months for 20 years now w no probs. Not only that but I never clean them on top of it. Just throw them in no rub solution every day. I have my eyes checked and rechecked by optimatrists w no issues what so ever. I bet if I told them what I do they'd all of a sudden see an issue lol cuz its all about the $. U might hear pple (optimatrists) say its bad and your eyes will fall out as a result but usually there r other green motives behind it. I will wear lenses till they either rip, I lose them or they just start feeling uncomfortable which is way way past the recommended date. If you really want to waist your $ than go 4 it but just don't let em scare you. FYI I never sleep/nap w them in.

@ Adam the Dr. How can u say 4 sure that her infection was due to prolonged contact use or one of many eye problems pple get at points in their life. Any infection of the eye will force some1 to not b able wear contacts. Just the fact that contact lens wearers touch their eyes way more than the average person will lead to more infections. Is it because she told you she wears her contacts longer than recommended that u thought that had 2 b the only conclusion. Also just cuz I don't remember the exact recommended expiration date from decades ago when I was a pre teen doesn't mean I'm lying. Maybe the fact that I'm not cleaning and not sleeping in them prolong the life. All I know is 20yrs is more than long enough to prove my point unless u think ill get eye cancer from doing that. Just like you can go blind from....... with yourself too much lol. I'm not saying that any1 can do this, as some pple might produce more protein or might be more sensitive than others. You just have to find out for yourself.



Some people can, some people can't, and it's impossible to tell who's who. Most people who do this suffer no problems, until one day they do. As an example, there's a young girl in my office who's been wearing her monthly lenses for three months each, probably for about five years now. She's never had an issue, until the last couple months she's had a constant stream of infections, had to throw out four pairs of lenses, and hasn't actually been able to wear lenses for two or three weeks now because her eyes go beet-red as soon as she puts them in (even brand new lenses).
Long story short, you can probably get away with it for a short period of time, but it's a bad idea. Some of the complications (like the girl above) are temporary reactions, but there are many others where you can't wear contact lenses ever again, and in some cases you can't have laser surgery either. You get one set of eyes, so I think it's reasonable to follow the advice of your eyecare professionals, which is based on verifiable scientific research and studies.
Also, there's no contact lens manufacturer out there who makes two-month disposable lenses, which makes me think your optometrist or optician is already telling you to 'stretch' a one-month lens into a two-month replacement. Might be worth researching your lenses and seeing what's going on -- if your contact lens fitter is putting your eyes as risk like this, is that really who you want taking care of you?
(And to the poster above: two-week disposable lenses haven't been out for 20 years; they were all monthly or longer until 1996 when the first dailies came out... any other facts you've got wrong there?)

Edit:
How do I know? Well, for one, I went to optometry school, while neither you nor my patient did. My patient happens to be a medical professional in training. She also openly admits to over-wearing her lenses, although it appears that may have been the advice of her previous optometrist trying to save her a few bucks. She's tried several types of lenses, changed solution, thrown out her eye makeup, and done literally everything else to remove all other variables in the situation except the actual process of wearing contact lenses. And her problem actually isn't the infections, it's a combination of something called CLARE and something else called CLI. She also is not the only patient I have who can't wear lenses anymore, for varying reasons. A few young people, a few older people, another optometrist's nephew... one of my classmates from optometry school even has permanent visual loss from overwearing her lenses, and if anyone should know better it's her.
Most people who do get an eye infection and manage it properly can in fact return to reasonably comfortable contact lens wear afterwards, though. Just because it's a common thing doesn't mean it's unavoidable. Your average non-CL wearing person has a very low chance of getting a bacterial keratitis (corneal infection). A RGP (hard-CL) wearer has about 1/10000 risk, and a soft CL wearer about 1/2500. (Unless you sleep in them, in which case it's about 1/500.) Conjunctivitis and other infections also happen, but the odds still aren't tremendously high. Infection isn't the primary concern, though; hypoxic damage is.
I didn't call you a liar. You're incorrect, you're misinformed, and you're giving advice and suggestions far beyond your knowledge. And I didn't say anything about eye cancer. The simple fact is, you personally are going against proven scientific medical advice that says it's not a good idea. You may have asymptomatic hypoxic damage to your cornea. You also may have super-resilient corneas that don't have any negative effects. (I've seen both.) Not everyone can do what you do, and nobody should try. And if you don't have any education in the matter, you shouldn't be on here giving people verifiably false information, you shouldn't be suggesting that your anecdotal evidence (i.e. what you do) is good advice, and you absolutely shouldn't be insulting registered health professionals and knocking their advice. Do you really think it's your place to suggest "you just have to find out for yourself" when there are documented cases of permanent blindness from doing just that?



Sure, but be reasonable. I would not go for more than about 10%, which means maybe a week over or so at most. The thing is, they do not go from good to bad like he flip of a light switch, but more like a slowly turned dimmer. Think like bread which goes dry and eventually starts to grow mold. The same kind of process is going on in disposable lenses...



I know people who do it all the time. They only throw them away when the lens tears or starts feeling uncomfortable. None of the people that I know have ever had a problem with there eyes because of this.




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