Key takeaways:
Contact lenses are a safe and convenient alternative to eyeglasses. But they can also cause eye problems if you don’t wear them properly.
Sleeping with contact lenses can lead to eye pain, redness, and infections. Over time, these conditions can permanently affect your vision.
There are FDA-approved contact lenses for overnight wear, but you still need to remove them after 6 days and take 1 night off.
In the U.S., 45 million people (about 13% of the population) depend on contact lenses to see clearly.
Contacts give you freedom from glasses. They don’t slip down your nose and won’t fog up when you wear a mask. But most people don’t always follow proper contact-lens hygiene, especially when they’re tired and just want to go to sleep.
Sleeping in contacts (even just for a nap) puts you at risk for eye problems that can permanently affect your vision. Here’s the science behind why sleeping with your contacts can harm your eyes.
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No. You shouldn’t sleep with your contacts in, even for brief periods of time, like naps.
There are serious risks that come with sleeping with your contacts in. Every time you sleep with contacts, your risk of developing one of these risks goes up. But you could end up with a complication — like an injury or infection — even from sleeping with contacts in for just one night.
Even though eye doctors regularly warn people not to sleep with contacts, a study from the CDC showed that more than half of people who use contacts admitted to sleeping with contacts at least occasionally.
If you forget to take your contacts out one night, don’t panic. Your eyes will probably be fine. That said, getting your contacts out the next morning might not be easy since they will dry out overnight. Before pulling them out, place a few drops of sterile saline (not tap water) in your eyes to moisten the contacts.
If your eyes hurt after sleeping with your contacts or your vision seems off, call your eye doctor right away. Bring your contacts in a case with you to the appointment. Your eye doctor may want to test them for bugs like bacteria and fungi.
When you sleep with your contacts in, oxygen can’t reach the cornea. The cornea is the clear front covering of the eye. It helps protect the eye and focus light so that you can see.
The cornea doesn’t have any blood vessels. This way it stays clear so light can pass through. Since there are no blood vessels, blood can’t deliver oxygen to the cornea. Instead, the cornea relies on oxygen reaching it through the air. When you leave your contacts in overnight, you cut off the cornea’s oxygen supply.
Sleeping with contacts in and cutting off the cornea’s oxygen supply puts you at risk for serious eye complications. Here are the most common.
If you ever sleep with contacts in, you’ll probably notice eye pain the next morning. You might also find you’re extra sensitive to light.
This happens when the cornea doesn’t get enough oxygen and the contact rubs against the cornea for hours. Peeling off dried contacts also irritates the cornea and leads to pain.
Eye pain should be mild and fade away. If you notice severe eye pain or pain that doesn’t go away after a few hours, see an eye doctor right away. These could be signs of more serious complications like ulcers or infection.
Eye redness and irritation are common symptoms from sleeping with contacts in. When you sleep, you make fewer tears. And with the added barrier of the contact lens, the cornea doesn’t get enough moisture or oxygen. This leads to eye irritation.
This can put you at risk for developing dry eye. If you already have dry eye, sleeping with contact lenses can make your condition worse.
Dried-out contact lenses are more likely to rip or crack. If your contact breaks while you're sleeping, it can scratch the cornea and cause a corneal abrasion.
Corneal abrasions can lead to eye pain, tearing, and redness. You may also feel like something is stuck in your eye. A large corneal abrasion can develop into a corneal ulcer, which is a serious eye condition.
Sleeping with contact lenses can lead to eye infections like pink eye (conjunctivitis) and keratitis.
Infectious keratitis is a serious eye infection that can happen when you sleep with your contacts in. Bacteria grows on contact lenses. If you don’t regularly clean them, this bacteria builds up and can pass into the cornea.
Bacteria can pass into the cornea more easily when the cornea is dried out or scratched, both of which can happen when you sleep with contacts in your eyes. Infectious keratitis can lead to permanent vision loss if it isn’t treated right away.
Studies also show that sleeping with contacts increases your risk of developing corneal ulcers.
Corneal ulcers are one of the most serious complications of sleeping with contact lenses because they can lead to permanent vision loss and blindness. Corneal ulcers are a medical emergency. Even with immediate treatment, you may still have complications like glaucoma, cataracts, and vision loss.
When you sleep with contacts in, oxygen can’t reach the cornea. Over time, the body’s response is to create blood vessels so that blood can deliver oxygen to the cornea. This is called “corneal neovascularization.”
While this may sound like a great idea, blood vessels don’t belong in the cornea. Corneal neovascularization distorts (changes) the shape of the cornea, which changes your vision. It’s not always possible to fully treat corneal neovascularization, so vision changes can be permanent.
There are FDA-approved contact lenses for extended use or continuous wear, including during sleep. If you have a hard time remembering to take out contact lenses, switching to extended-use or continuous-use lenses can keep your eyes healthy and your vision safe.
If you recently had a baby and are getting up at all hours to do nighttime feeds, switching to extended-use lenses for a few months may be very helpful. You may also benefit from these lenses if you have interrupted sleep as part of your job.
Extended-use lenses are made from different, thinner materials that let six times more oxygen pass through than regular, soft contact lenses. Some brands are approved for extended use (up to 6 days), while others are approved for continuous use (up to 30 days). Experts recommend taking a 24-hour break from contact lenses at the end of each cycle to let the cornea recover.
There is also orthokeratology, a treatment that reshapes the cornea so people can have clear vision during the day without contact lenses or glasses. Ortho-k contact lenses are made to be worn during sleep. But you take them off during the day so the corneas can get plenty of oxygen and recover.
When it comes to sleeping with contacts — just don’t do it. Taking your contact lenses out at night is annoying but necessary to protect your eyes. Sleeping with your contacts can cause eye pain and irritation and more serious complications like infections and corneal ulcers.
There are FDA-approved contact lenses that you can wear during sleep. If you develop eye pain, redness, or vision changes after sleeping with contacts in, see your eye doctor right away.
American Academy of Orthokeratology & Myopia Control. (n.d.). Ortho-k (orthokeratology).
Arbabi, E. M., et al. (2018). Corneal ulcers in general practice. British Journal of General Practice.
Bui, T. H., et al. (2010). Patient compliance during contact lens wear: Perceptions, awareness, and behavior. Eye Contact Lens.
Bunya, V. Y., et al. (2022). Corneal neovascularization. American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Byrd, L. B., et al. (2022). Corneal ulcer. StatPearls.
Cope, J. R., et al. (2015). Contact lens wearer demographics and risk behaviors for contact lens-related eye infections — United States, 2014. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Goodlaw, E. (1996). Risk of infection from sleeping with contact lenses on: Causes of risk. Optometry and Vision Science.
The University of Texas at Austin Universal Health Services. (n.d.). Corneal abrasions.
VisionDirect. (n.d.). Sleeping with contact lenses.
Wolffsohn, J. S., et al. (2021). Demographic and lifestyle risk factors of dry eye disease subtypes: A cross-sectional study. The Ocular Surface.
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