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Don’t Sleep in Your Contacts, CDC Warns (Video)

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(File: Morgan/Flickr)

A new CDC report shows that people who do this have six to eight times the risk of developing eye infections. Buzz60’s Elizabeth Keatinge has more.

A 59-year-old man was in the shower, wiping his eyes with a towel, when he heard a popping sound and felt pain shoot through his left eye.

His cornea had developed a severe ulcer and ruptured, tearing a hole in his eye.

The ulcer grew from a bacterial infection the man developed after leaving his soft contact lenses in overnight during a two-day hunting trip, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention case report.

About one in every three people who wear contact lenses sleep or nap with their lenses still in, the CDC says.

These folks are risking their eyesight.

Sleeping in contacts increases your risk of a serious eye infection six- to eight-fold, the CDC warns.

“I’ve been telling patients not to sleep in contacts since the days when they told you that you can sleep in them. It’s bad news,” said Dr. Mark Fromer, an ophthalmologist with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. Emergency surgery to replace the cornea saved the 59-year-old’s eye. He eventually recovered useful vision, but only after undergoing cataract surgery a year later.

UPIexcerpt posted on SouthFloridaReporter.com, Aug. 20, 2018

Video By Buzz60/Elizabeth Keatinge