Vision Arts Eyecare Centres on Vancouver Island

Contact lenses: trouble in sight?

by Marion Brooks

CHICAGO. Coloured contact lenses, the kind that don’t correct your vision, but just change the colour of your eyes, are in fashion, popular, and potentially dangerous. They’re safe when purchased from an eye doctor, but they aren’t the only ones selling them. NBC 5 found coloured contacts being sold illegally along with wigs and shampoo, and state investigators even found them at a hot dog stand. Most people have no idea they need a prescription for the lenses, and that without one, you may have trouble in sight.

Once upon a time there were only corrective lenses, clear contacts that freed eyeglass wearers everywhere. But now you can get contacts that have no corrective power, and simply change the colour of your eyes.

Shantel Johnson loved wearing her grey contact lenses, and thought she looked great. But that didn’t last. Her eyes started irritating her one day, but she kept the lenses in and took them out when she got home and went to bed.

"When I woke up the next morning my eye was swollen and it was blood shot red," she said.
Shantel had an eye infection, and lost a week of school. But she is lucky that’s all she lost.
"Ultimately you can go blind. If you get ulcer and its not treated appropriately and quickly, you can lose the use of your eye," said Dr. Michael Alvarez, Shantel’s optometrist.

Many contact lens wearers don’t think there is any danger with these non-corrective lenses. Many have an extremely dangerous misconception about them. For example, the lenses require a prescription, as with any time something is in your eye. "It has to fit properly or you are putting yourself at risk of vision loss," said Dr. Alvarez.

There is nothing wrong with non-corrective coloured contact lenses if you have a prescription. But the fact is the Food and Drug Administration has classified all contact lenses, including non-corrective lenses, as medical devices because they go onto a sensitive organ, your eye.
It’s so important that state and federal laws require you have a prescription.

EASY ACCESS

But NBC 5 found it pretty easy to buy non-corrective lenses without a doctor’s exam or a prescription. In fact, we found some of these lenses along with the hair dye and wigs in two Chicago beauty supply stores, and not far form the boots and shoes in a Chicago clothing store. We simply walked in, asked for them, and got them.

Shantel had the same experience at three different places. "You just walk in and ask for them and they’ll give them to you," she said. John Coghlan, the chief investigator for the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation, is trying to crack down on the illegal sale of lenses.
"We’re cooperating with other law enforcement agencies to try to back track to see where these lenses are coming from," he said. So far the IDPR has made seven arrests from all over Northern Illinois.

If no-power coloured contact lenses are potentially dangerous and illegal to sell without a license, how are they getting them from the manufacturer to the corner beauty supply store? NBC 5 went back to the stores where we bought some of these lenses to find out. We got the same story at each store. None of the managers knew he was breaking the law.

All of the lenses we bought were made by Wesley Jessen Corporation in Des Plaines. We told the company we bought its lenses with no prescription. The company told us in a statement they know and are concerned about illegal sales, and have sent letters to unlicensed stores outlining the law. They said they have also hired private investigators to find out how the stores are getting the lenses.

One way, according to authorities, may be the Internet. We found several companies selling contact lenses on the Web, and were able to order coloured lenses without a prescription. One company, Lens Express, filled our order without a prescription.

We reported our filled order to Lens Express. Its executive vice president, Brian O’Neill, said his employees are supposed to verify prescriptions. They didn’t do things the right way, he said, and as a result, he said his employees will go back through training.

Shantel has learned that being wrong about lenses can mean more than being out of style "If you put style over safety then you may have really pretty eyes, but the next thing you know is that you can’t see," she said.

State investigators have made three more arrests in this case after discovering lenses being sold illegally at a clothing store, a pager and phone store, and a hot dog stand.

As for the Internet, non-prescription sales of lenses have been such a problem that optometrists fought to have mail order companies more strictly regulated. A law requiring the companies to obtain a license with the state takes effect in January.

CONTACT LENS MISTAKES

Many contact lens wearers do the right thing with their lenses. But many don’t, and may be doing more damage to their eyes than they could ever imagine

Millions of people can see clearly now thanks to contact lenses. But some break the rules about proper contact lens care and put their sight at risk.

The white area is
a corneal ulcer.

Patricia Heywood took certain shortcuts, including wearing her lenses about two weeks at a time. Even overnight, Heywood, a physician, committed contact lens mistake number one: over wearing."I knew the right thing to do and it was just easier not to do it," she said. Dr. Heywood wore extended wear lenses, which can be worn at night, but not for more than seven days. Many doctors don’t even like that, according Dr. Heywood’s ophthalmologist.

"Even if we get patients or prescribe patients with an extended wear contact lens we never tell them to wear them overnight," said Dr. James McDonnell of the Loyola Medical Center. Dr. Heywood didn’t listen to her doctor and paid the price. "I had a corneal ulcer in both eyes. The left eye was worse than the right," she said.

The cornea is the clear cover over the front of the eye. A corneal ulcer develops when bacteria eats its way through the cornea. The ulcer can leave a scar. If the scar is in the central part of the cornea, you can lose vision.

PROPER USAGE

According to the American Academy of Optometrists, extended lens wearers are four to ten times more likely to develop corneal infection than daily lens wearers. But many daily wear lens wearers make contact lens mistake number two: they sleep in them.

"I’ll just turn off the light and go to bed and leave them in because tomorrow, I don’t have to put them in," said Michael Binder. That means his eyes weren’t getting enough oxygen, and tiny blood vessels were beginning to form, which can be a problem. The blood vessels can bleed, and have blood that actually dissects or tracks through the cornea and cause decreased vision as well, according to Dr. McConnell.

The cornea gets oxygen from the air, so putting a lens on top of it can block some, most, or even all of the oxygen when you are awake or asleep. Not all contacts allow the same amount of oxygen to get to the eye. The older hard lenses, for example, don’t allow oxygen through.
But newer hard lenses, called rigid gas permeable, do allow oxygen through. There also extended wear soft lenses, which are gas permeable.

But daily wear soft lenses only allow limited oxygen. That’s why it is so important to take them out every night. It is also important not to share contact lenses, which is our contact lens mistake number three. "I share lenses with my best friends," she said. "It was just for that night...just a spare thing."

Optometrist Dr. Louise Sclafani hears of shared lenses all the time at the University of Chicago Eye Clinic, especially coloured lenses. "You’re passing someone’s biofilm, or the things that make up our eye from one patient to another, and that is not hygienically appropriate," she said.

HEALTHY EYES

To keep your eyes in good shape, avoid over wearing your contacts. Be wary of signs of infection like pain, redness, tearing, and light sensitivity.

To prevent infection, don’t share lenses; disinfect and replace your lenses regularly; and don’t sleep in them.

Contact lens wearers should also get their eyes examined every six to twelve months.

Doctors say most people don’t think things like redness and irritation are signs of a more serious problem, but they usually are, and you should probably check in with your doctor.
For more information about contact lenses you can call the Contact Lens Council at 1-800-884-4252, or ask your optometrist.