By: Fuyu Bannon
Graphics Editor
Contact lenses are an essential part of everyday living for those who do not possess the 20/20 vision many take for granted. As for myself, I use Corneal Refractive Therapy lenses (CRTs), which are hard overnight contact lenses. CRT’s help reshape the eye overnight (worn during sleep) and let the user have almost perfect vision during daylight hours. As grateful as I am for the benefits of these lenses, it also comes with a great deal of fear of using them every single day. Join me as I cover my fears of these lenses that some may relate to.
The fear of lenses getting caught in the back of my eyeballs: As TikTok and other social media platforms illustrate, many users wonder what would happen if the lenses travel away from the center eye and move to the back of the eyeballs. Having a piece of plastic stuck in the inside of your head sends chills down my spine just thinking about it.
The fear of the lenses breaking: The wonderful lenses cost anywhere between 300 to 500 dollars for a pair. Dropping them down the drain or cracking them in half is essentially the same as burning hundreds of dollars in a fair. And of course, the lenses have to be as thin as ice and slippery in the hands, making it almost a 50/50 chance that one of these disasters can occur.
The fear of accidentally putting two percent hydrogen peroxide in my eyes: ClearCare is one of the commonly used solutions to clean CRT lenses. The solution also happened to contain two percent hydrogen peroxide, meaning that the solution is meant to sit for six or more hours for it to be safe to use the CRT lenses on the eyes. Now imagine it’s 1 AM you’re only half awake at this point and you try to pour saline into each lens so the lenses do not dry out. Yet because you are only half awake, you mistake the bottle of saline for the ClearCare … putting outright hydrogen peroxide in your eyes. That my friends, is the solution for burning eyes and lots and lots of pain.
The fear of sticking a suction cup into my eyes: If things sounded as if it could get any worse, unlike soft lenses where you can use your hands to take them out, a miniature suction cup is needed to take these lenses out. First, stick them in your eyes,and suction them onto the leans. Then, pull — An easy and totally not disturbing way to take them out. Many times, I wonder what would happen if I accidentally suctioned directly onto my eyeballs. This leads me to paint a grotesque image in my head of pulling out my entire eyeball with a suction cup, which is not a pretty picture.
Although there is much to fear about these overnight lenses, at the end of the day I would not have been able to see many things, without including this article.