Contact Lens Wear Schedules

Another very important aspect of contact lens wear is the wear schedule, or the amount of time a contact lens is worn. If contact lenses are overworn, it can drastically affect the comfort and vision of your contact lenses, as well as the health of your eyes.

Each brand of contact lens is made and specifically tested for use over a certain period of time. If it is used for longer than what is recommended, it can potentially cause harm or at least discomfort to your eyes.

Your eye care practitioner will recommend how many hours per day you can wear your lenses, and how frequently to replace them.

Sticking to your wear schedule can greatly improve your experience with contact lenses if you are having difficulties with comfort, dryness and redness.

Over-wearing accidentally

Many people overwear their contact lenses. Often times, it is a simple mistake, as is explained in the following example.

A patient complains that her contact lenses are not lasting as long as she expects them to. After a bit of discussion, we realize that when she started out wearing contact lenses, her optometrist told her that since she was only wearing them part time (3-4 days per week), she could keep one pair of Oasys for one month. As time went by, she started wearing her contacts more often, up to almost 7 days per week. She is still expecting these same lenses to last a month, even though she is wearing them twice as often.

Acuvue Oasys are recommended by the manufacturer to be replaced every two weeks, even when they are only being worn part time. Their recommendation is that if you aren't wearing contacts very often, you should be in a daily disposable such as an Acuvue One Day Moist.

Deliberately over-wearing

Sometimes, people think they can extend the life of their contact lenses to be frugal. This is not an acceptable practise from a health standpoint.

Deliberately over wearing contact lenses contributes to the following:

• Eye infections
• Dry eye
• Hypoxia, or a reduced amount of oxygen to the eye
• Worsening of the prescription
• Increased redness
• Blood vessels growing into the cornea, where they don't belong

Most people are trying to be more health conscious these days.

For example, we...

• go on diets
• buy organic food
• buy bottled water instead of drinking tap water
• take vitamins and supplements- go to a gym to work out
• go to a gym to work out

All of these things cost money... So why would this same person try to SAVE money by extending the life of his contacts, and in the process risk harming his eyes?

Return to Contact Lens Care from Wear Schedule

Search this site:

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

• tips and how to's
• information on new products
• online contact lens deals
• rebates