Contact lenses are very safe. Still, wearing contact lenses can damage your eyes if you wear them too long, fail to clean them properly or do not replace them as directed by your eye doctor.
Contact lenses are considered medical devices and are regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). For safety reasons, they cannot be purchased without a professional fitting and a contact lens prescription written by a licensed eye doctor.
Keep the Oxygen Flowing to Your Eyes
Because contact lenses rest directly on the eye and cover the entire cornea (or, in the case of gas permeable contact lenses, part of the cornea), they decrease the amount of oxygen that reaches your eyes from the environment. A good oxygen supply is essential to keeping your eyes healthy.
You can limit the potentially harmful effects of oxygen deprivation from contact lens wear by doing the following:
Adhere to the wearing schedule your eye doctor recommends; discard and replace your contacts as directed.
You also may want to choose modern silicone hydrogel contact lenses. These soft lenses are made of a material that transmits more oxygen than conventional soft contact lens materials and may be safer for your eyes in the long run.
Another option is rigid gas permeable (GP) contact lenses. Gas permeable contacts are smaller in diameter than soft or silicone hydrogel lenses and therefore cover less of the cornea. Also, GP contacts move a significant amount with each blink, allowing fresh tears to move under the lenses. These two factors decrease the risk of eye problems with gas permeable lenses, compared with wearing soft contacts.