ADDED TO CARTCan you shower with contacts? Is it bad?
Can you wear contacts in the shower? For most people, wearing contact lenses in the shower happens by accident. However, showering with your contact lenses isn’t a great idea, both for the quality of the contact lenses as well as the health of the wearer. So, what happens if you shower with contacts?
Showering with contacts: what to know
Showering while wearing contact lenses, like leaving them in while sleeping or swimming, is one of the most common mistakes people make when taking care of their lenses. As your OD has certainly told you, should never come into contact with tap water, and if they do, you should remove them and replace them with fresh ones.
Here’s why -- most tap water can contain microbes that are potentially harmful, and pose a potentially serious threat to your eye health. This is why you need to use a special kind of cleaning solution on your lenses when you take them out. The lens cleaner disinfects the lenses by eliminating any harmful bacteria and clearing away any impurities. These bacteria and impurities can build up on the lenses over time if the lenses are not properly cared for, causing irritation and creating a greater chance of eye infection.
Due to the sponge-like nature of some contact lenses types, microbe-containing tap water gets absorbed into the lenses, and because of the threat they can pose to your eye health and vision, you don’t want it swirling around in your eyes all day! When using contact lenses, you should try to keep them clean and disinfected at all times.
Is it bad to shower with contacts?
Wearing your lenses in the shower gives rise to the potential for eye infection and damaging vision and should thus be avoided at all costs. If this wasn’t enough, when you wear your lenses in the shower, there’s also a chance that the jet of water knocks the lenses out of your eyes and ends up sending the lenses down the drain.
The best thing to do to avoid infection and damaging or losing your lenses is to take them out before you shower and store them in contact lens solution to prevent putting infected lenses back in your eyes.
Most contact lenses are designed to be worn and discarded on a daily, bi-weekly or monthly basis, since don’t worry if you need to toss the lenses earlier than you normally would - you can restock your supply of contacts online and even order contacts online with insurance easily and in no time.
