EP #4: Eye Health Matters: A Deep Dive into Contact Lens Use with Dr. Falco

Ever wondered why your eyes feel irritated after a long day of wearing contact lenses? In the latest episode of the Jazzy Eyes podcast, Dr. Laura Falco, brings to light the many facets of using contact lenses, particularly the soft ones, and why you might be unintentionally harming your eyes. She points out the various types of lenses available, like the one-day lenses, the two-week lenses, and the monthly ones. In particular, the benefits of one-day lenses and the importance of cleanliness to avoid eye irritations are highlighted.

Dr. Falco takes a deep dive into the potential health risks associated with improper lens care, including the dangerous pseudomonas infection that can occur from storing lenses in tap water. The conversation takes an intriguing turn as she underscores the significance of giving your eyes a break from the contact lenses. Despite the breathable design of these lenses, they still restrict oxygen to the cornea, which is crucial for your eye health. Dr. Falco's insights serve as essential takeaways for anyone using or contemplating the use of contact lenses. So, if you've ever thought about the best way to look after your eyes when using contact lenses, or are curious about the potential pitfalls to steer clear of, this episode is a must-listen!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the Jazzy Eyes podcast. Taking care of your vision with expert precision. Here's your host, dr Laura Falco.

Jeremy: 0:16

Hello, hello everyone, and welcome to episode number four of the Jazzy Eyes podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeremy Wolfe, and I'm here with none other than your host, Dr Laura Falco. Dr Falco, how are you doing on this glorious Monday morning?

Dr. Falco: 0:32

I'm doing great, thank you. How are you doing?

Jeremy: 0:35

I am great, feel really relieved now that I finally got in to see you. It has been I don't know how many years since I saw an eye doctor and thankfully I have a good report. I'm not in need of anything severe, but you hear that listeners out there don't wait four years, like I did, to go see an eye doctor. You should go see at least every year to get your vision checked and make sure you are up to speed. Interesting topic of conversation today, something a little bit not foreign to me but it's distant the idea of contact lenses. I used to wear contacts before I had lasik surgery 15 years ago. I have a little bit of a recollection of what that was like, but I was hoping maybe today you could share a little bit about contact lenses, soft contact lenses.

Jeremy: 1:21

Yeah, I'm going to listen to those on that topic.

Dr. Falco: 1:24

Yes, absolutely. Soft contact lenses are exploding as far as the amount of different contacts there are. So today I'll talk a little bit about soft contact lens wear. There's a couple of different modalities.

Dr. Falco: 1:40

Most people that I end up examining I end up putting in a daily, a one day lens. It's a one wear lens. The advantages of the one day lens is that you do not have an opportunity for everything that's in the air to build up on the lens. Lenses stick to dust pollen, everything that's in the air. So when you re-wear a lens over and over and over, that's when patients start to have an intolerance to contact lens and their eyes feel irritated. They can't wait to get the lenses out because everything that is in your eyes and the gunk in the corner like everything is accumulating on that contact lens.

Dr. Falco: 2:20

So really, truly the healthiest way to go in a soft contact lens is to use a one day lens, and I even tell patients like it's a one wear, you put it into place sports for a few hours, you take it out, you throw it right in the garbage. The advantages are you don't have to buy any solutions. You don't have to worry about oh my God, how long was this contact lens in this case, for Is the case clean? Did the fluid evaporate in the case and now the lens is funky, so you're not ever going to. People sometimes have put tap water in their cases and then that's a whole nother issue where you can get a really serious pseudomonas infection.

Jeremy: 2:57

So it takes back. Hold on back up a second there. So if you get tap water in the solution, well, some patients store their lenses. Oh, just water.

Dr. Falco: 3:07

Filter tap water, thinking it's clean and it has bacteria in it and then they put their lens in their eye and you can get it. It's called a pseudomonas infection, where you could literally go blind. I mean, it's really really bad.

Dr. Falco: 3:21

That's no good. So the one day lens is a really nice modality because you don't have to buy a solution. You go on vacation, you bring a bunch of lenses for the right eye, a bunch of lenses for the left eye, one rips, no big deal. You've got plenty of backups. So that's probably the most common way I prescribe contact lenses for patients. There's a two week lens that is out there. There's really just one two week lens that I would say most patients end up over wearing for a month. I don't know if they think it's a month, but there's a two week lens out there and then there are a few monthly contact lenses. So with the monthly contact lenses and the two week lenses, now you're looking at buying solution.

Dr. Falco: 4:05

Now you want to clean the lenses and I'm a proponent of even though these newer solutions have said no rub like you could just put the, it'll clean the contact. You should always put it in your palm and use some friction with your index finger to clean the contact, because there are things that deposit on the lenses and you do want to clean that lens before you put it in the case. There's another solution out there that's called clear care. It's a hydrogen peroxide solution. It is different in that you cannot just rinse hydrogen peroxide on your lens and put your lens in your eye. You will burn your eye?

Jeremy: 4:42

I suspect not. Yeah, hydrogen peroxide does not sound like something you want to put directly in your eye. For sure, absolutely not.

Dr. Falco: 4:47

However, you're going to have your lens sit overnight and it really is a fantastic cleaner. It really gives like think of it like a deep clean. So I really do like that solution, but you have to make sure that you know how to use it properly.

Jeremy: 5:01

Yeah, I imagine after you let it soak overnight before you put it in your eye, you need to then take some saline or something and wash it off before you put it in right.

Dr. Falco: 5:11

So yeah, so there's those for the multi use. You know like you're using the contact for more than one time and they can also be utilized because sometimes they have parameters that are beyond the parameters, prescription wise, of the daily lenses. So sometimes we have to go with a monthly lens. But there are other issues in also, in addition to just having the different modalities, and that's how long you put the contact lens in your eye for. So you could be wearing a one day lens, but if you wake up first thing in the morning and the first thing you do when you get up and go to the bathroom is put your contacts in, because your eyes have been closed all night, and then the last thing you do before you go to sleep is take out your contacts. And I've even had parents tell me there's dried up contact lenses on their no offense suns nightstand. They literally don't even wash their hands. We take their contacts out literally right before they're passing out and they like flick them on their nightstand, which is not what we recommend.

Jeremy: 6:21

Boys will be boys.

Dr. Falco: 6:24

So when we talk about wearing a contact lens during the day, it's still very important to understand as breathable as these contact lenses are, it's still foreign material you're putting in your eye, like think about, you're putting a little saran wrap in your eye all day, and yes, it's breeds more than that.

Dr. Falco: 6:45

But the reality is your cornea needs oxygen. So, as we mature, what we could get away with at 25 is not what we can get away with at 45. And people don't make that jump to that being an eye issue. They're like oh, I can't go out at 10 o'clock and go to bed at two and function the next day, and I used to be able to run five miles and I used to be able to squat this much and I used to used to used to. Well, it's the same thing for the eye. So you could kind of get away with maybe a little more contact lens abuse at 25. But then at 45, it's like the rubber meets the road, so hold on.

Jeremy: 7:26

Speak for yourself. I'm like a fine wine. Okay, I get better.

Dr. Falco: 7:30

Yes, yes, we are Right, and women we are. We are aging like jalapenos, so we're getting hotter to get older. So as we, as we get older, the cornea needs oxygen. So I tell my patients you know you can't not have a pair of glasses. Contacts are always like your extra. So in the morning it's better to put your glasses on and open your eyes and let your your cornea get actual oxygen. And then at night I never recommend waiting right before you go to bed to take out your contacts because you're closing your eyes, your eyes roll up, your lids come down and then you're in the same situation and your cornea is not getting oxygen. So over time, when you do that and you don't put glasses on to watch TV in bed and you don't give your eyes a couple hours per day of air, the structure starts to send the cornea an emergency signal to the brain that says I'm not getting what I need, I'm not getting oxygen. And the brain says don't worry, I gotcha, what I'm gonna do is grow in Blood supply to your cornea and what we call that is neo new Vascularization.

Dr. Falco: 8:40

These are new blood vessels that don't be long in the cornea. It's a clear structure and the body grows in blood vessels because Hemoglobin in the red blood cells carries oxygen. So if you're not going to give your cornea oxygen, your body is going to find a workaround and the workaround is growing in an abnormal blood supply to a clear structure. So this is not a good idea. And as we mature, that's what I see in my patient. So what, oh? But I used to always wear it. Yeah, okay, I used to do a lot of things, but as you get older, your cornea needs that air. So when I see a patient that has that and I educate them about the situation like this is bad. This can reduce your vision permanently.

Dr. Falco: 9:26

You want to decrease your wear time, wear your glasses more, and the reality is those blood vessels will never go away. They're called ghost vessels. The blood will recede from the vessel so they won't be actively. You know blood going in, but the vessel will remain and it's called a ghost vessel and Depending upon how much that vessel grows into the cornea if it grows into your central cornea you will always be looking through a hazy ghost vessel for the rest of your life.

Dr. Falco: 9:57

So this is why we want to start having good contact lens hygiene. We want to take our contacts out. We want to, you know, use the proper cleaners. We want to make sure that the body and this is why Patients have to come in once a year if they're contact lens wearer Because I have to make sure and look at that cornea with my microscope that they haven't done damage to the eye that makes them, you know, a bad candidate. I have to make sure that we're not setting ourselves up for potential vision loss in the future. So patients like I don't know I have to come in once a year, yeah, because I have to check, I have to make sure that your cornea is still healthy enough to put that contact lens on for now.

Jeremy: 10:39

Yeah, and I think this is important to talk about this kind of stuff because it all goes back to Building strong daily habits and routines. Personal high chair preventative same thing with, like brushing your teeth. Now, when you're dealing with contact lenses, it's important to have everything on a on a routine and get into the habits of doing that so you don't have these you know downstream issues later on for sure.

Dr. Falco: 11:02

Right, right, and I and I'm totally, you know, I'm told I, when patients have success with contact lenses, I'm super happy for them. You know, again, as we mature to it's different when you in a in a multi focal, progressive pair of glasses. It doesn't translate exactly, you know, to contacts and as we, as we mature, our eyes become drier and so there are newer materials that hold the moisture better. But you know that I would say the most popular reason for contact lens fallout as we mature is is that you just can't get the same multi focal Lens as you can in glasses. And then you know the material your eyes do feel. You feel it by the end of the day, but sometimes for weekends, for dressing up, whatever, you know, we can absolutely do that and there's no reason why I have patients in their 70s who can put contact lenses and it's fine as long as you're doing it the right way. So it doesn't mean you can't have them. You just have to keep a little bit of a closer watch on patients ocular health as they mature.

Jeremy: 12:03

All right, very good. So I'm interested now to hear dr Neuven's perspective. I'm gonna talk a little bit about more specialty types of situations. Have anything else that you wanted to add before we hop on with her?

Dr. Falco: 12:17

You know, not really. I think we kind of cut, you know, like everything else would would launch us into like another 15 minute conversation. So I think we're good, the little tidbits here and there is perfect, but yeah.

Jeremy: 12:30

Perfect, all right, well, sounds good. Dr Falco is always a pleasure. I've actually had the pleasure of seeing you twice and and just a couple days, so looking forward to our our next discussion together and to our listeners. Thanks, as always for tuning in and we will see you on the next episode, jesse, as podcast. Everyone, have a great day.

Speaker 1: 12:52

Thank you for listening to the jazzy eyes podcast. For more information, visit jazzy eyes calm or contact 954 473 0100.