Am I unreasonable to instantly stop trusting any eye doctor who tells me I can leave my contact lenses in for days and days at a time? That just seems like a crazy bad idea to me, and it instantly makes me look at them sideways and think “Snake Oil Eye Salesman!” I mean really, why would you do that? My contacts get irritating after wearing them for a long day, and it’s a relief to take them out. Why on earth would you go to sleep with them in, then get up and wear them all day again?
Does anyone out there do that? Please ‘splain.
I Heard Tell 
Anne
Maybe the ones he’s recommending are better? I hear some of them are pretty high-tech these days. Man, I miss insurance!
mollyschoemann
Well, the ones he recommended as the highest-tech felt suspiciously hard and uncomfortable to me, so I opted to buy my regular Accuvue Oasys (!?!) lenses again.
Maybe if future lenses become so high-tech that they don’t exist anymore, I will wear them for days. Until then…
Anne! If only we had lived together for 4 more years, we could have been commonlaw! Then you’d be on your way to insurance easy-street!
donn.
Molly! OMG, this is so timely! I recently got contacts you leave in — day and night — for 30 days straight. And I must tell you…I love them. They took some getting used to as I haven’t worn contacts regularly in a couple of years. But getting the rewetting drops is key (I apply a few drops throughout the day); the drops keep your eyes moist and totally comfortable. Plus, it’s kinda cool to wake up in the middle of the night to pee and be able to see everything clearly!
Now Lasik surgery, that’s some Snake Oil gobbledygook right there. Do we REALLY know the long-term effects of Star Trek lasers to the eyeballs? I’ll stick with my Focus Night & Days.
By the way, I miss you! When are you coming back to Boston??? 😦
Mike Murphy, OD
Just because contact lenses are approved for continuous wear by the FDA does not mean that everyone can or should wear them like that. I am not an advocate of continuous wear for most people (do you wear the same underwear for 30 days without removing them????), and even lenses that are approved for 30 day wear I strongly advocate removal every week at the very least. FYI, Oasys is approved for 2 week wear, 6 days continuous. However, that is contingent upon having eyes that produce tears in sufficient quantity and proper composition so that they remain comfortable. I cannot wear a contact lens for more than a couple of hours without wanting to tear out my eyes. LASIK: dry eyes get even drier.
mollyschoemann
Funny, I just got off the phone with my Mom and I posed the same question to her in terms of continuous wear– you could wear the same underwear for 30 days straight, but just because you can, does that mean you should?
Sometimes I wonder about the FDA and it’s approvals. I think there are too many people who think that ‘FDA Approved’ means ‘FDA condoned and encouraged’. Maybe they should change ‘FDA approved’ to ‘FDA has deduced that this doesn’t appear to seriously maim or kill you’.
leanne
This terrifies me. After 8 hours, my eyes start melding to the plastic, so 30 days sounds awful. Also, if I fall asleep with contacts in my eyes, one of them always seems to have found its way up into my forehead before the next morning, meaning I can either wear 2 in one eye (not recommended) or sit around and wait for it to come back down.
Any good recommendations of where to go to get a contacts prescription? I went to this one guy 6 times (I know, I know, but once you’ve invested that much time, you just want to see it through) and he failed utterly – my contacts are the wrong prescription still and I am unsuccessful at hard lenses – we tried 3 or 4 kinds, with lip and without, and apparently my eyes are defective because the lenses constantly slip. Halp!
iheardtell
Oh My Gosh. Reading this 2 (!?) years later, I totally feel your pain. I had to go back twice to get my most recent prescription tweaked and it STILL sucks. And I have to wait until October to get my eyes examined in an insured way again.
Blargh! Glasses it is for now.