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Although coloured contact lenses are a fun accessory especially on Halloween, a study suggests that they may impair your vision.
In a new study, the researchers conducted a vision exam on 30 participants. At first they were asked to wear clear contact lenses, and then they were asked to switch to coloured contact lenses that had different amounts of space around the optical zone (space around the pupil).
The study found that when people wore coloured contact lenses with small optical zones it was a lot more difficult for them to see well. The participants reported that their vision got blurry and they could barely see objects that were placed at a bigger distance. Some of the participants were also unable to see white items against a light background and darker items against a black background.
According to Dr. Oliver Schein, an ophthalmology researcher at the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute in Baltimore, people are not very likely to encounter any problems when they wear coloured contact lenses for a few hours on Halloween.
The real problem is that many people buy coloured contact lenses without consulting an eye healthcare professional first, Dr. Edward Manche, director of cornea and refractive surgery at Stanford Health Care in California, stated. The contact lenses that are bought from costume stores could increase the risk of getting eye infections, because the may be made out of unsafe materials, or may not fit properly.
In the study that was conducted by Tae-im Kim of Yonsei University College of Medicine in South Korea, the participants were asked to try on contact lenses that had 0.15, 0.19, and 0.23 inches (4, 5, and 6 millimetres) clear optical zones. Researchers advise people to buy coloured contact lenses with 0.23 inches (6 millimetres) in diameter.
“Many if not most of the people wearing the lenses obtain them over the counter, online or borrow them from friends. This often leads to poorly fitting lenses as well as use by people with no instruction on the care and wearing of lenses,” stated Dr. Edward Manche, director of cornea and refractive surgery at Stanford Health Care in California.
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