CNA Daily Cuts (Podcast): The Risks of Wearing Contact Lenses

Listen to the full podcast featuring Dr Don Pek, here:
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/listen/daily-cuts/foresight-risks-wearing-contact-lenses-4518961

(Edited Transcript Below)

Interviewer: We recently read about three Singaporeans starting their own brand of coloured contact lenses. And they set up the business based on their addiction to wearing them. As coloured contact lenses junkies, they’ve tried more than 80 different types. Such coloured contact lenses out there are widely available today, especially online. Plus, they don’t need a prescription. And some are sold at lower than the usual prices.

Recently, a content creator reported a severe reaction from wearing contact lenses, coloured contact lenses, that she bought online for less than $8. And she took to social media to warn people against buying contact lenses online. So, what should we look out for when buying contact lenses, especially coloured ones, and especially more so when you are not bespectacled and not familiar with wearing contact lenses?

Let’s bring in Dr Don Pek, he is a senior consultant and co-founder of Lumin Eye Specialists. What should we need to look out for when buying contact lenses to ensure that they’re safe for use?

Dr Don Pek: Good morning, everyone. Thanks for having me on the show. Contact lenses are actually a very common kind of refractive correction if people don’t want to wear glasses. Usually, traditionally, you go to an optician, they will check your corneas, they will check the health of your eye and make sure that you are a suitable candidate to wear contact lenses safely.

They will also teach you the proper hand hygiene and how you want to store the lenses safely with the correct solutions. And then prescribe the contact lenses that you require. Unfortunately, these days when everything becomes more accessible, you miss this important step of the health check for your eyes, and then you’re able to just order the lenses online.

So our advice is to actually go to a shop first to make sure that you are suitable to wear contact lenses. Make sure you don’t have very common conditions like very dry eyes, for example, and have an eye check as well. If you have any problems with an ophthalmologist, then we will be able to advise you accordingly.

Interviewer: Right.

Dr Don Pek: When you do focus on contact lenses, make sure they are the right power for you. And you have to test it out first because contact lenses come in different sizes and also curvatures. So some may not fit certain corneas. So all these things are important to work out first and then know your measurements before you actually order online.

Interviewer: And this also applies to people who are not bespectacled. And who may want to get just coloured contact lenses purely for aesthetic reasons.

Dr Don Pek: That’s right. I mean, if you are a first-time contact lens user, it can be very scary to try and put a device in your eye. I mean, everyone starts blinking and people actually benefit from learning proper hand hygiene, proper handling of the lenses and how to put it in safely without scratching your eye. And many opticians are very well versed in giving good advice, for example, like when you first start, don’t wear it for 12 hours. Wear it for a few hours, once you get used to it, you don’t have that foreign body sensation, then you can increase the time safely,

And another bit of advice would be to use preservative-free lubricant eye drops. Not all are suitable for contact lens wear, so you need to find the ones that are suitable, and they will help with the foreign body sensation. They will also increase the safety of wearing these lenses.

So these things are actually vital to tell first-time users instead of just being able to buy it straight online.

Interviewer: Dr Pek, we are just curious between coloured contact lenses and normal lenses, the ones that are non-colored, is there actually a difference between the two? Because I remember I used to wear contact lenses before I went for Lasik. They do feel rather heavy or thick compared to normal lenses. Is there actually a significant difference between them?

Dr Don Pek: In terms of the make, not really, but the normal lenses or the traditional lenses, they are a bit more complicated. So not only do you have the normal ones that correct for myopia or hyperopia, but you also have more advanced ones that are multifocal that can help you overcome things like presbyopia or as the Chinese call it, “Lao Hua”. And you also have special lenses that correct astigmatism. So people with very high astigmatism, for example, more than 150 degrees, you find that even if you put a normal contact lens, it may not be very sharp.

So, all these things are available in a so-called normal or standard contact lens, but they are usually not available in a coloured lens. A coloured lens will only correct the myopia or hyperopia with a simple power, but it doesn’t have all the options of multifocality or even thoracic or asthmatic correction.

Interviewer: Dr Pek, what are the top three most common contact lens complications that you see at your clinic?

Dr Don Pek: The first one would be dry eye symptoms. So that would range from feeling a foreign body in the eye, a burning sensation, and tearing. These are all dry eye or even contact lens allergy problems. So it can be from the lens material itself or even the storage solution.

The next thing would be the ones that we are most worried about would be contact lens associated infections. So corneal ulcers need to be described in this episode. So if you wear your contact lens for too long, it keeps rubbing against your eye and then it can cause certain small scratches we call “epithelial defects”.

So sometimes the bacteria can go inside these epithelial defects and cause an infection and the most worrying types of bacteria or even protozoa will be amoeba and followed by vegetative material or fungus infections and then bacterial infections. So, it is very important to maintain good hand hygiene. Know how to handle the contact lens properly and also to wear them safely.

Interviewer: Could you tell us how long recovery usually takes from contact lens complications? And would you advise wearing contact lenses again after recovery?

Dr Don Pek: That’s a very good question. I mean, a lot of us want to look nice right nowadays. But I think vision is forever, and it is one of the most important senses. So we need to cherish it, we need to protect it, right? So the duration of recovery will depend on the kind of condition. So if it is something simple like dry eyes or contact lens overwear, we would advise people moving on, to change their lifestyle. So don’t wear it every single day.

Wear it perhaps maybe when you’re working or when you’re doing sports? Five days a week, have a contact lens holiday or break over the weekends, wear your pair of glasses so your cornea actually gets enough oxygen it recovers from the contact lens use and there’s nothing rubbing your eyes every time you blink.

And also try to decrease the amount of time you wear the contact lenses, not more than 12 hours for beginners and also increase the amount of tears that spread under the lens. This is important because it brings oxygen to the cornea and prevents it from breaking down and keeps the cells healthy. So use a preservative-free eye drop while wearing contact lenses.

Okay, so if you have contact lens overwear, depending on the severity, it can take about one to two weeks to get better. And if there are no worse complications like infections and all that, it is probably safe to restart the contact lenses with your doctor’s advice, and also come back while wearing the contact lenses for a follow-up to make sure the cornea doesn’t have problems again.

Interviewer: So just a final question here, Dr Pek. So we have done what you have recommended, we have gone to the optometrist to check out our eyes, to make sure that we are in fact suitable to wear contact lenses etc. And now we want to shop online for contact lenses purely because we know we don’t have the time, all sorts of reasons why we shop online, right? The convenience of it all, the options perhaps are more widely available there.

So if we are still insistent on buying contact lenses online, what is the one single most important thing that we need to check while shopping around?

Dr Don Pek: The single most important thing while checking, after testing the contact lenses and all that, just make sure it is a reputable brand, make sure it is the correct power, make sure that they did not send someone else’s lenses to you.

It’s happened before. Make sure when you get it back, if you have different powers for each eye, label all of them. Because it’s very often we get patients coming in, both my eyes are blurred, and then we find out that they swapped the lenses, you know, because they didn’t label it right at the start. So these are very basic, simple things.

But with technology nowadays and improved manufacturing processes, they tend to be quite safe. Also check the expiry date.

Interviewer: Ah, that’s a very important one there, Dr Pek. This has been absolutely valuable information for us, especially those who are not bespectacled and don’t wear contact lenses. This is really valuable information for us also. Thank you so much for being on the show to talk to us about it today.

Dr Don Pek: Oh, great pleasure.Thank you very much for having me.

Interviewer: It’s our pleasure as well and hopefully we will see fewer cases of complications from contact lens wear as well. Dr Don Pek is a senior consultant and co-founder of Lumin Eye Specialists.