I wear contacts, and am incredibly careful about my eyes. Years ago, when I was a busy grad student working 20 hours a week and attending classes full time, I had a sharp pain in my eye. I wasn’t able to leave school to remove the contact until late in the evening – by then, my eye was pounding. The next day, I skipped out on a work shift to visit the campus hospital, only to be diagnosed with a scratch on my eye. The treatment? Sit in a dark room all day while waiting for it to heal.
The pain was immense. I couldn’t even eat. The faint light from my alarm clock burned my eye. When I retreated from my room a day later, there was a bright white spot center on my pupil. I returned to the campus hospital, where the doctor immediately sent me to the Mass Eye and Ear Hospital.
You know a problem is serious when one of the best Eye and Ear Hospitals in the country parades their interns in to look at your eye. It was a corneal ulcer, and it was serious enough to require eye drops every hour (even during the night, when I had to set an alarm to go off every hour). I also had to go to the doctor daily, then every other day, then weekly, then monthly. I was legally blind in one eye for a few days, but once the inflammation went down my eyesight returned.
I learned a valuable lesson about how important eye care is. That’s why, if you see me in the summer, I’ll be the one wearing sunglasses to protect my eyes (and yes, maybe as a fashion statement – but mostly to protect my eyes). I wear Acuvue Moist Brand 1-Day Contacts, which I remove and toss every day.
Acuvue and Aveeno are working together on a new podcast to talk about the importance of UV Protection for the entire body, including the eyes. You can listen here.
And don’t forget the sunglasses.
Disclosure: Acuvue provided me with a 1-month supply of the contacts that I already wear. Opinions are my own.
