Can You Sleep in Contact Lenses?
This question usually arrives the morning after, which tells you something about how often it happens. The short version: it depends on the lens, and most lenses are not approved for it.
What changes when your eyes are closed
Your cornea has no blood supply of its own. It takes oxygen directly from the air through the tear film. A contact lens sits between the two, so how much oxygen reaches the cornea depends on how permeable the lens material is.
Close your eyes and two things happen at once. The air supply is gone, so oxygen now has to come from the blood vessels in your eyelids, which deliver less. And your tears stop being spread across the eye by blinking, so the flushing action that clears debris and bacteria pauses for hours.
A lens sitting on the eye through all of that is in a very different environment from the one it experiences during the day.
Daily wear and extended wear
Daily wear lenses are approved to be worn while awake and removed before sleeping. Most lenses are these.
Extended wear lenses are specifically approved for overnight wear, usually made from silicone hydrogel, which lets considerably more oxygen through. The approved schedule varies by lens, and the approval is per product.
The distinction is not about how a lens feels. A daily wear lens can feel perfectly comfortable at bedtime and still not be made for the hours that follow. Only your prescriber and the lens labeling can tell you which category yours falls into, and if you are not sure, assume it is daily wear until you have checked.
Why eye doctors are cautious even about approved lenses
Sleeping in lenses raises the risk of eye infection, including microbial keratitis, an infection of the cornea that can affect vision. This is well documented, and it is the reason the advice is consistent across eye care.
Risk is not certainty. Plenty of people have napped in lenses without incident. But the odds shift, they shift more the more often it happens, and the consequences at the serious end involve your sight, which is a poor thing to gamble with for the sake of not getting up.
Even people fitted with extended wear lenses are often advised to take them out overnight when it is practical.
If you have already fallen asleep in them
- Do not pull at a dry lens. That is how corneas get scratched.
- Blink several times and give your tears a moment to rehydrate the lens.
- Use rewetting drops made for contact lenses, such as Boston Rewetting Drops for gas permeable lenses. Check the label says it is for use with lenses; not every drop is.
- Remove the lens gently once it moves freely. Our removal guide covers the method.
- Give your eyes a break before wearing lenses again, and wear glasses in the meantime.
When to call someone
Contact your eye care professional the same day if, after removing the lens, you have redness that does not settle, pain, light sensitivity, discharge, blurred vision, or a persistent feeling that something is in your eye. Do not put another lens in to see whether it improves.
Making it less likely
If you are falling asleep in lenses regularly, the routine is the thing to change rather than your luck. Keep a case and solution by the bed, wear glasses in the evening, and talk to your prescriber, since daily disposables suit some people precisely because there is nothing to forget. Our contact lens range and supplies section cover both.