Those wearing contact eye lenses may just need to check up with their calendars. A lately done survey has shown that forty percent of those wearing contact lenses are not doing the requisite replacement at par with what the set parameters furnished by lens manufacturers.
The assessment conducted by investigators from the Centre for Contact Lens Research, Canada, Univ. of Waterloo had over 1,600 United States entrants that wore contact lenses.
Those entrants who were wearing varied forms of contact lenses – about forty-five percent of them used silicone hydrogel eye lenses whose replacement must be done in a time interval of 2 weeks, thirty-nine percent of them were wearing silicone hydrogel eye lenses whose replacement must be done every month and sixteen percent of the entrants were wearing throwaway lenses whose day-to-day replacement is necessary.
During the examination, entrants cited how frequently they did replacement of their lenses. Taken as a whole, forty percent of the entrants were found to be keeping their lenses way past the manufacturer’s suggested date. This tardy use of contact lenses included fifty-nine percent of entrants with 2-week silicone hydrogel lens, twenty-nine percent of entrants for the thirty-day intended use of silicone hydrogel contact lenses and fifteen percent of everyday throwaway lenses.
When reasons for why they failed in replacing their lenses on the recommended date, several reasons were cited. In those entrants that used the 2-week or thirty-day limit use silicone hydrogel lenses, the prevalent reason given was failing to remember precisely when they should have got new-fangled lenses.
They were the most probable entrants to have stated that it would have been beneficial when they had an aide memoire or reminder alert system – like an alert email or text messages – for jogging their memory when replacement of their lenses was due.
However, patients having everyday throwaway lenses had a diverse rationale for using their lenses way past their expiration dates. The key impetus for this behaviour was an endeavour at saving some cash.
Another explanation could be the coaching a number of patients received from their ophthalmic practitioners; nine percent of whom had taken part in the review suggested that they keep lenses for longer than the suggested time set by lens makers.
Patients in the younger age band had greater likelihood of keeping their contact lenses way past the lens makers suggested date.
The investigation that was backed by contact lens corporation CIBA Vision, did not reveal how tardy the patients characteristically were in changing their contact lenses.
