Diabetes and contact lenses 

Can Diabetics Wear Contacts?



Do you have diabetes? Does this make you unsure of whether or not you can wear contact lenses? Well you're not alone. Diabetes is well known for causing many vision related problems, including fluctuating vision and blindness. With such serious complications occurring in a diabetic eye, why add contact lenses and their associated complications to the mix?

In fact, many diabetics can and have been successfully wearing contact lenses. Studies have shown that current soft contact lenses are acceptable for patients with diabetes. All that is required, however, is the understanding that people with diabetes can't wear their contacts as often as non-diabetics and that diabetics have to be a little bit smarter about taking care of their contact lenses. There are two main reasons for this:

1. The cornea (which is the transparent surface on the front of the eye) in diabetics has decreased sensitivity. What this means is that a diabetic patient will become aware of any problems with their contact lenses much later than a person with normal corneal sensitivity.

2. Diabetics tend to recover and heal more slowly.

This combination of having a slower reaction time and a slower healing response can potentially lead to much more serious contact lens complications in a diabetic compared with a non-diabetic.