The soft contact lens as a high risk
The idea of the contact lens goes back 500 years to Leonardo da Vinci. However, other geniuses also came up with the concept again and again: René Descartes and John Herschel also contributed with inspirations to the first real lenses seeing the light of day in the 1880s. In 1823, Herschel introduced a spherical capsule filled with jelly, which came amazingly close to the concept of today’s contact lenses. However, it was not until 1975 that soft lenses were mass-produced. Since then, they have been popular worldwide as a visual aid. However, more and more studies and voices are suggesting that soft contact lenses can be harmful.
The supply to the cornea is severely compromised
Almost three and a half million Germans wear lenses as a visual aid, and 80 percent of them use soft lenses. Only three out of every hundred cases of eye damage caused by contact lenses are caused by hard lenses. Reason enough to find out why soft lenses pose a high risk. Firstly, soft contact lenses have a larger diameter, they cover not only the cornea but also parts of the conjunctiva and are quite immobile. This prevents the cornea from being enriched with oxygen and nutrients via the blood.
Leave it in at night? Nonsense!
However, not only the supply of useful substances, but also the disposal of metabolic products via the tear fluid is restricted by the larger soft lenses. All of this can lead to serious infections in the eye – and ultimately to a severe loss of vision. According to experts, it is extremely important to remove the lenses from the eye from time to time, especially at night. Contact lens manufacturers advertise that it is completely unproblematic to wear the lenses for several days at a time without interruption. However, this is pure nonsense. This is because the eyelids are closed at night – which also means that the eye cannot be supplied with the all-important oxygen.
