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Myope5
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Extend wear contacts may be riskier than lasik. Possible complications for both with tips provided
credit goes to someone(not me!) for this tidbit below
I believe that we are comparing apples to oranges. Refractive surgery
has a rate of unresolved complications at six months post surgery of
3%. The contact lens complication rate you are quoting is over a
lifetime with continuous use.
The severity of complications from contact lenses pale in comparison
to the complications from refractive surgery.
Both contact lenses and refractive surgery have risks. Surgery
condenses all the risk in a small period of time, whereas contact lens
exposure to risk is over years, even decades.
One really cannot be directly compared to the other, but a person can
extrapolate.
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2/14/2006, 6:26 pm
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Myope5
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complications of overnight wear
The FDA approved extended wear lenses to be worn for up to 30 days without removal. But researchers later found the incidence of eye infections was greater among people who sleep in their contact lenses. The FDA changed the maximum extended wear period to seven days, but many eyecare practitioners decided that any overnight wear at all is too risky.
The concern is that potentially dangerous organisms, which might enter your eye from your fingers, your eyelids, or the lens care solutions you use, might get lodged under your lens. These organisms can thrive better if your contact lens is not removed nightly, and if the oxygen supply to your eye is reduced because a lens is covering it. This might cause infections that range from an annoying case of conjunctivitis to more serious conditions that can lead to blindness.
The most serious safety concern with any contact lens is related to overnight use. Extended-wear (overnight) contact lenses--rigid or soft--increase the risk of corneal ulcers, infection-caused eruptions on the cornea that can lead to blindness. Symptoms include vision changes, eye redness, eye discomfort or pain, and excessive tearing.
The risk of corneal ulcers for people who keep extended-wear lenses in overnight is 10 to 15 times greater than for those who use daily-wear lenses only while awake, says James Saviola, O.D., chief of the vitreoretinal and extraocular devices branch at FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health.
When the eyes are open, he explains, tears carry adequate oxygen to the cornea to keep it healthy. But during sleep, the eye produces fewer tears, causing the cornea to swell. Under the binding down of a rigid contact lens during sleep, the flow of tears and oxygen to the cornea is further reduced. This lack of oxygen leaves the eye vulnerable to infection.
Extended-wear rigid lenses also can cause unexpected, sometimes undesirable, reshaping of the cornea.
Soft extended-wear lenses also bind down on the closed eye, but they are porous and allow some tears through during sleep. Because they have so little form, their binding has little effect on the shape of the eye.
FDA has approved extended-wear lenses for use up to seven days before removal for cleaning. Still, there are risks with use of extended-wear lenses, "even if it's just one night," Saviola says. Daily-wear lenses are removed daily for cleaning and are a safer choice, provided they aren't worn during sleep.
My optometrist knows all that. I am ashamed of any optometrist who is so blantly misguided about the risks of extended overnight contact wear! Just because its FDA approved does NOT make it safe! LASIK has been "FDA approved" but many thousands of people ruin their eyes from laser surgury! If you are too lazy to take 30 seconds to pop out your contacts before you go to bed, you dont deserve to wear contacts! Stick to glassses!
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2/16/2006, 4:12 pm
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Myope5
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Re: Extend wear contacts almost as risky as lasik. Possible complications for both with tips!
Schein's team calls contact lenses "very safe" in general, though they note that contact lenses are associated with some extra risks, compared with eyeglasses.
They rank the risk of vision loss from eye infection for different types of contact lenses:
Lowest risk: Rigid, gas-permeable contact lenses for daily wear
Next-to-lowest risk: Soft contact lenses for daily wear
Highest risk: Silicone hydrogel contact lenses for extended wear of three-to-four weeks
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extended-wear hydrogel: NSK, 48.2 and SK, 96.4; and
daily-wear hydrogel (excluding daily disposable): NSK, 14.1 and SK, 6.4;
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extended-wear silicone hydrogel: NSK, 98.8 and SK, 19.8.
daily-wear silicone hydrogel: NSK, 55.9 and SK, 0.0;
You can see that silicone is much safer. If we compare hydrogel vs. hydrogel we see that sleeping in them increases the risks of severe keratitis by about 15 times. The problem is you guys are comparing silicone vs. hydrogel. Thats apples to oranges. I already understand that silicone is safer, period. What im trying to show is sleeping in silicone is infiniately riskier than daily wear. Notice that the rate for severe keratitis is ZERO by NOT sleeping in those silicone lenses!
Wearing contact lenses overnight can increase the risk of keratitis compared with using lenses only during the day. For extended-wear users, silicone hydrogel lenses offer less risk of keratitis compared with hydrogel lenses. The risks however are much higher compared for daily wear.
The rate for severe keratitis when sleeping in hydrogel lenses was 96 per 10,000 wearers per year compared to 20 per 10,000 per year for wearers of silicone hydrogel lenses. These compare to 6.4 wearers per year for daily wear of hydrogel lenses and almost 0 wearers per year for daily wear of silicone hydrogel lenses.
"Individuals tend to make choices based on factors such as comfort, convenience, personal preference, and safety," notes Schein. "The data are solid that the risks are least with rigid and soft daily-wear contact lenses, more with overnight wear of contact lenses and most with refractive surgery," he adds."
I leave this up to the individual. My choice is sticking to glasses and occasional daily wear of contacts. I will never sleep in contacts! Some people are risk takers and gamble their eyes and vision by sleeping in contacts and especially getting RS, namely lasik. I never understood why gamble your eyes sleeping in contacts? It takes me and most people less than a minute to remove one's contacts and put them in the holder before going to bed. It takes only a minute to pour out the old solution, rinse the contacts in new solution, fill the contacts with solution and insert them in the eyes. Its as easy as brushing your teeth! Do you really want to risk your eyes more than neccessary to save a minute of your time? I sure as heck dont! My eyes are far more important than the very, very slight convinence and time saving of inserting/removing contacts. I wear glasses most of the time so I avoid the risks of contacts alltogether!
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2/17/2006, 3:21 pm
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Myope5
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Re: Extend wear contacts risks compared to lasik. Possible complications for both with tips!
Q. Is Laser Vision Correction safe?
A. All surgical procedures carry a potential risk. Laser Vision Correction, in the hands of an experienced eye surgeon, is very low in risk. This risk is extremely small (less than the risk associated with extended wear contact lenses, for example). Therefore the FDA has released its approval as 'safe and effective'. Nonetheless, all patients should be well informed of the risks of treatment and follow their preoperative and postoperative instructions carefully.
LASEK and epi-LASIK are Safer Than Contacts!
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Dr. Chynn has performed an analysis that shows the risk of losing vision is actually less with the newer, safer, non-cutting, all-laser, no-flap procedures LASEK and epi-LASIK, than wearing contact lenses for 20 years!
"If you take the small, but non-zero risk of contact lens wear, like losing vision from an infection from overnight wear, improper cleaning, or improper storage, and multiply it by 20 (the number of years people typically wear contacts)," says Dr. Chynn, that risk is actually HIGHER than the risk of the newest forms of Laser Vision Correction, LASEK and epi-LASIK.
"So, although you take the risk all at once with Laser Vision Correction (LVC), you are then actually reducing your overall risk of losing vision, compared to if you had just continued to wear contacts the rest of your life!
http://www.bouldereyes.com/faq.html
Why is LASIK sometimes considered safer than wearing contacts?
Contact Lenses reduce the amount of oxygen on the surface of the eye which in turn reduces the blood flow to the cornea. Very often this can lead to complications such as infection. Soft contacts are better than hard contacts but, over time both hard and soft lenses tend to lead to symptoms of chronic wear and tear on the eye. LASIK offers those with vision correction needs the chance to see naturally the way nature intended.
But Dr. Marjorie Rah, of the New England Eye Institute, says that outcome is rare if the lenses are worn and cared for properly. Of the 300 patients she has seen, only two have developed the condition. One was wearing them 24 hours a day, while the other wore them while swimming, exposing them to bacteria.
Soft contact lenses aren't the panacea some say they are, however. Anytime someone wears soft lenses, they're increasing their chance for irritation, infection and corneal ulcers. "It doesn't necessarily take abuse," to suffer these ailments, says Dr. Donald Schwartz of Long Beach, Calif., a spokesman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology. The key to minimizing the risk is to limit the amount of time you wear the lenses. And never sleep with them. With proper care and eye exams, however, they're generally very safe, say most doctors.
Read this, especially Serebel and Ragnar!
Glasses
Newer isn't always better. Ophthalmologists agree that the most conservative and healthiest way to correct your vision is still old-fashioned spectacles. "With glasses, you're minimizing the risks," Azar says. "There's no risk of infection or allergy." And if you aren't happy with your prescription, you can change it at any time, he says. Glasses can also make quite the fashion statement.
Glasses are also safer than ever. Special ultraviolet coatings protect eyes from harmful sunrays, and plastic lenses greatly reduce the risk of injury. The price? That's up to you. National chains, such as LensCrafters, often run $99 specials. Designer frames with fancy coated lenses can run upward of $400.
My comments: I guess Ragnar is partially right in saying laser surgury is safer than long term contact wear. Thats because many people dont know how to properly care for them. They dont clean them correctly or at all, they swim with contacts. Worse of all some sleep in contacts. Overwearing contacts and for long term will cause wear and tear on your eyes. Contacts can be safe if you take proper measures and limit their wear, wearing glasses part time such as when you are home.
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7/17/2006, 11:20 pm
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Myope5
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Fiction article stating how safe lasik is vs. contacts.
http://www.usaeyes.org/lasik/library/lasik-safer-contacts.htm
The above article sounds like a work of fiction and fabricated by some procontent.
I checked the http://www.ohsu.edu/ site and your article is nowhere to be found. It looks like someone made up that article then claimed http://www.ohsu.edu/ wrote it. Please back up this article and also show references or peer reviews to this article.
That article might be true in one extreme circumstance, if a contact lens wearer was totally irresponsible with caring for them, didnt clean them properly or at all, wore them for days, weeks without taking them out to clean, slept in them(especially if they are NOT silicone hydrogels!) In other words, a worst case scinerio showing a total lack of care and regard!
Properly cared for, the risks of contacts is at least ten times(probably much more) lower than lasik over your lifetime. With lasik, the 1 in 1250 losing 1 line of vision is false, its more like 1 in 5 to 1 in 10 that lose a line.(10-20% will lose a line) Even the surgeons websites state this risk!
I can show you hundreds of articles stating the damage of lasik. There are some articles stating the damage of contacts for those unlucky or careless, but contacts damage far less eyes. The fact 20 million wear contacts and only 1 million got lasik, most of them former glasses wearers is more evidence people would much rather wear glasses/contacts than risk lasik!
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10/10/2006, 2:25 am
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Myope5
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Re: Extend wear contacts risks compared to lasik. Possible complications for both with tips!
Study: Lasik safer than contact lenses
Portland, Ore., researchers have said contact lens users are more likely than Lasik surgery patients to develop complications leading to further vision loss.
Ophthalmologist William Mathers and colleagues at Oregon Health and Science University's Casey Eye Institute said a review of multiple studies revealed that contact lens wearers face a 1- in-100 risk of developing a serious lens-related eye infection over 30 years of use and a 1-in-2,000 chance of experiencing dramatic loss of vision loss as a result, WebMD reported Wednesday.
The researchers said in the journal Archives of Ophthalmology that the chances of Lasik surgery leading to significant vision loss is about 1-in-10,000.
"One shouldn't just assume that contacts are safer," Mathers said. "This may have been true at one time but for the average person this is certainly not the case anymore."
"Almost everyone who wears contact lenses violates some principle of proper use at some point," he said. "Either they don't wash their hands before putting them in or they use tap water (to store the lenses). But infections can occur even when this doesn't happen."
take this with a truck of salt. I know lots of lasik and contact wearers and far more lasik victims are having complications. But then contacts arent so safe either and if you are too lazy to care for them, stick to glasses.
Last edited by Myope5, 5/31/2007, 7:03 pm
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5/31/2007, 6:59 pm
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