Are Contact Lenses Prematurely Aging Your Eye Area?
People choose contact lenses over glasses for a lot of reasons, including the fact that it allows the wearer to have a fully visible eye area. Eyes are seen as one of the face's most beautiful features, so it's understandable that contact lens wearers might choose them over glasses. However, if you knew that contacts could potentially cause your eye area to age prematurely versus glasses, would you still choose them? Read on to learn how this happens and what you can do to avoid it.
Skin Damage
The skin surrounding the eyes is extremely delicate and needs extra protection from UV rays. Unfortunately, contact lenses don't provide any protection to the skin, so contact lens wearers may experience more wrinkles and thinning skin around the eyes.
If you wear contacts and make sure to wear sunglasses while you're outdoors, it may help to reduce this risk. However, UV rays are so potent that up to 80% can penetrate through clouds, and they can even go through the glass of household windows. Unless you're wearing sunglasses during every minute of daylight whether you're indoors or outdoors, chances are that delicate skin is being overly exposed to UV radiation.
Ptosis
Ptosis is a disorder that children generally develop or are born with that causes an unnatural drooping of one or both eyelids. This not only affects appearance, but if left untreated, it can alter one's vision, as the eyelid may droop so low that your vision becomes partially obscured.
While most people don't develop ptosis later in life, one study has discovered that rigid or hard contact lenses may cause ptosis in people who otherwise wouldn't develop it. The study discovered that users of hard contact lenses were twenty times more likely to develop ptosis than those who don't use them.
The Solution
Wearing glasses may not seem as glamorous as wearing contact lenses, but glasses provide benefits that will keep your eye area looking younger, longer.
With glasses, there's no additional risk of ptosis, so you don't have to worry about your eyelids drooping as you age. Wearing glasses to prevent this symptom in the first place is far easier and less expensive than having to have surgery to repair the damage later in life.
In addition, while wearing sunglasses during all hours of the day tends to be impractical, wearing glasses all the time is easy. Glasses can have a non-tinted UV coating applied to the lens that will help to protect your eyes and surrounding skin from UV radiation no matter where you are during the daytime.
Contact lenses may allow the eyes to shine through without a pair of glasses in front of them, but they may also cause your eye area to age more quickly. Wearing glasses during the daytime may help to prevent these premature aging symptoms, and you can always choose to wear soft contact lenses as part of an evening look.
For more information, contact EyeCare About Vegas: Dr. R Dougal Morrison & Dr. Christopher Coker or a similar location.
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