According to a study in Optometry & Vision Science, about half of contact lens wearers develop contact lens-related dry eye.
It is great to have contact lenses as an alternative to glasses. It is another method of seeing clearly, and contact lenses have undergone numerous advancements in technology. Even so, there are some cases when contact lenses may cause patients to feel like their eyes are so dry. There can be a variety of reasons for this.
Why do contact lenses cause dry eyes?
Firstly, it depends on the type and modality of contact lenses you wear. If you wear bi-weekly or monthly contact lenses, for example, you are more likely to develop a variety of different protein and lens deposits on your lens. Then, when you place them on your eyes, your eyes may feel gritty and dry. That's why it's really great to switch to our daily contact lenses.
The prolonged use of contact lenses
Wearing your contact lenses for a prolonged period of time may also cause dry eyes. It's a good idea to switch into your glasses at the end of the day when you come back from work, school, or wherever you have been, to allow your eyes to rest a little bit.
How can daily contact lenses help with dry eyes?
These are single-use contact lenses that you throw away at the end of the day. This means that every morning, you have a new pack of lenses in your eyes, and proteins and other deposits are less likely to accumulate. It has been shown that this reduces symptoms of dry eyes and it also depends on the material of contact lens you're wearing.
How do scleral lenses alleviate symptoms of dry eyes?
The best contact lenses for patients with dry eyes are specialty hard contact lenses called scleral lenses, which can help to improve your symptoms of dry eyes while still wearing contact lenses. A scleral contact lens is larger than a standard contact lens. As a result, it extends and lands on the white part of your eye called the sclera rather than just covering your cornea, which is the front part of your eye. Since they do not sit directly against your cornea, they are less likely to irritate the cornea than standard contact lenses.
The way that this contact lens is placed into your eye is that before it's placed into your eye, the bowl of that contact lens it's filled up with a saline solution so that when you place it onto your eye, your eye is going to remain wet throughout the whole day. So it ensures constant hydration of the eye. If you have been suffering with severe dry eyes you might benefit from scleral contact lenses.
