If you wear contact lenses, you probably don’t follow every single rule of lens ownership to the letter. After all, it’s kind of a pain to change your solution every single day, or wash your hands every time you touch your eyes. Plus, does anyone really throw their contacts out after the recommended use?
But there’s a chance all those bad habits might add up to something, well, bad. According to a small new study published in the journal mBio, people who wore contacts had higher proportions of the skin bacteria Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, Methylobacterium, and Lactobacillus in their eyeballs.
Researchers say they’re not totally sure if this happens as a result of handling your contacts (and transferring your skin bacteria to your eyes), or if contact lenses actually make the bacteria in your eyes become more similar to that found on your skin.
And while there’s a chance this bacteria could make an eye infection worse, it’s most likely not going to cause one, says Michelle Akler, M.D., an ophthalmologist at Akler Eye Center in Dearborn, Michigan, who adds that you shouldn’t panic. “It does change the composition of the microbes on the eye, but the eye is always colonized with some microbes,” she says.
[vc_btn title=”More on contact lenses” style=”outline” color=”primary” size=”lg” align=”left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.womenshealthmag.com%2Fhealth%2Fcontact-lenses-bacteria|title:More%20on%20contact%20lenses|target:%20_blank”][vc_message message_box_style=”3d” message_box_color=”turquoise”]By KORIN MIILLER, Women’s Health, SouthFloridaReporter.com, Mar. 24, 2016
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