3 Ways You’re Destroying Your Eyes and How to Change

The other day I wanted to send my patient out for a surgical consult to fix his damaged corneas.  He had been using his 2 week contacts as a 3-month contact and depriving his eyes of oxygen, resulting is rampant new blood vessel growth on his corneas. He also used Duane Reade contact solution and never rubbed his contacts.  Fantastic.

So don’t be like him.  Here’s some things you can change right now to save your sight:

1) Rub them!  That contact lens solution isn’t magic.  If it were, the soap industry would’ve picked up on it.  Hey, look!  No-scrub dish soap and scrubless shampoo!  Rejoice!

2) Buy brand name solutions, not generics.  It’s proven that the brand name solutions are better and safer than generics.  And no, I don’t get a kickback.  Ask your eye doc for the best one for your lens.

3) Wear them less!  How would your feet smell if you wore your shoes for 18 hrs a day…EVERYDAY?!  Take 1 day off a week and keep it under 14hrs a day, if possible. Remember to change them regularly too since they lose their integrity and breathability with time.

Hope you make these changes and take better care of your eyes!  You’ve only got 2 of them.

Dr. Dennis Cheng

dc optics

390 Myrtle Ave

facebook.com/dcoptics

Oh no!!! My contact lens rolled up into my eye! Is it stuck FOREVER!?!?

It’s happened to pretty much all of us.  You either rubbed your eye or blinked the wrong way and your lens rolls or folds up.  It then defies gravity and moves UP to the upper pocket above your eye and you start to panic.  Will I need surgery to remove it?  Is it stuck forever?  What if it get’s lodged into my brain?!?

Let’s relax everyone.  It won’t end up in your brain, or behind your eye or stuck back there forever.  Sometimes you’re lucky and you’ll be able to blink it out.  When that doesn’t happen, you can try flushing out your eyes with saline solution.  When all that fails, visit a local Optometrist and we can usually find and removed the lens with a moistened cotton swab. 

So, where does the lens go and how come it doesn’t end up in our brain?  There’s a thin membrane known as your conjunctiva and it almost covers the entire surface of your eyes from the inside of the lids to the edge of your cornea.  It folds over itself and forms a pocket above and below your eyes called a fornix. Imagine clear plastic wrap over your eye.  That membrane and fornix keeps the lens from ending up behind the eyeball.  It’s kinda like when you tuck your chewing gum way up in the space between your cheek and gums.  It stops there and can’t go any further.  Same goes for the contacts.

Hopefully, this will ease your worries the next time it happens.

Take care!

Dennis Cheng, O.D.

 dc optics

390 Myrtle Ave

Brooklyn, NY 11205

facebook.com/dcoptics