Take Another Look At Contact Lenses

ps Natural Vision Improvement markets itself as a lifestyle method of improving eyesight by wholistic means

photo credit: Malkav

Try for eye exercises. This could improve your vision Naturally!

It is no surprise that more and more people are seeking alternative ways to improve their vision. We’re eating organic, buying green (heck, even Wal-Mart is jumping on the environmental wagon), and reclaiming the herbal remedies our great-grandparents used, so natural vision improvement is right on the money.

Contact Costs: Financial

Or should we say, right for your money. It’s a safe bet that, even had the technology been around in our ancestors’ time, Great-Grandma couldn’t have afforded contact lenses.  Add the cost of fitting the lenses, plus contact solution and cases, plus follow-up care, and, well, Grandma could literally have bought her farm.

Contact Costs: Physical

Figuratively speaking, while no one is known to have “bought the farm” from wearing contacts, a few recalls throughout the years have highlighted the lenses’ health risks.  Contact wearers are wondering what solution is safe to use. One  infection is a canthamoeba keratitis, caused by a waterborne parasite.

Try for eye exercises. This could improve your vision Naturally!

In 2006, Bausch & Lomb pulled its ReNu with MoistureLoc off the shelves and discontinued the solution worldwide. O’Steen & Harrison, the firm representing the people who developed fungal eye infections as a result of using ReNu, says, “The latest report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided that the agency is investigating 164 reports of fusarium keratitis infections. … Fusarium keratitis infections can scar the cornea and potentially blind the person. Early symptoms of this eye infection include blurry vision, pain or redness, excessive discharge, and increased sensitivity to light.”

Scary, but also ironic—the very method you’re using to improve your vision could instead make you blind.

But wait, as they say, that’s not all: giant papillary conjunctivitis (caused by an adverse reaction to the contact lens itself in the eye), corneal warpage (where the contacts literally change the curvature of the cornea), and even corneal ulceration may also afflict the contact lens wearer. EyeMDLink.com calls corneal ulceration “one of the most dreaded complications of contact lens wear.” This bacterial infection of the cornea can cause permanent visual loss, depending on what part of the cornea is affected.

Contact Costs: Mental

All of this is not to mention the little things that can make life uncomfortable for contact lens wearers on a daily basis. The dryness and itching. The protein deposits. Makeup on or under the lens. Having to carry both solution and lens case—not to mention glasses—as a backup. Knowing that if you clean your lenses improperly or wear them inappropriately, you could potentially develop a debilitating eye infection. And the worst: that panicky feeling you get when your lens slips into the back of your eye and you feel like you might never get it out again. (That did happen to me!)

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