THURSDAY, Aug. 18, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Unsafe use of contact lenses -- such as sleeping with them in place or using the same pair for too long -- is triggering serious eye injuries for many Americans, a new report finds. ET 
 
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 Nearly 1 in 5 contact lens-related eye infections reported to a federal database involved a patient who experienced eye damage, according to a report published in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). The infections, submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Medical Device Report Database, included patients who had a scarred cornea, needed a corneal transplant, or otherwise suffered a reduction in vision. In fact, eye damage occurred in nearly 20 percent of contact lens-related eye infections reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over 10 years, researchers say. “Contact lenses are a safe and effective form of vision correction when worn and cared for as recommended,” said Michael Beach, Ph.D., director of CDC’s Healthy Water Program, in a statement. “While patients, especially younger patients, are really excited about being fitted with contact lenses, I stress to them that contact lenses are medical devices that have to be properly fitted, evaluated and that they must adhere to proper contact lens care,” said Dr. Andrea Thau of the American Optometric Association (AOA). “However, improper wear and care of contact lenses can cause eye infections that sometimes lead to serious, long-term damage.” 
 
 For the report, researchers reviewed more than 1,000 contact lens-related infections reported to the FDA between 2005 and 2015. More than 10 percent of the reports indicated that the patient went to an emergency department or urgent care clinic for immediate care. Whether eye infections are minor or lead to long-lasting damage, they can be painful and disrupt daily life. For example, many of the reports describe the patients needing to make daily visits to an eye doctor or hourly administration of eye drops to treat the infection. Furthermore, the report found that more than one in four of the reports mentioned easily avoidable behaviors that increase the risk of infection, such as wearing lenses while sleeping and wearing them longer than recommended. “Around 41 million people in the United States wear contact lenses and benefit from the improved vision and comfort they provide,” said Jennifer Cope, M.D., M.P.H., medical epidemiologist in CDC’s Waterborne Disease Prevention Branch. “While people who get serious eye infections represent a small percentage of those who wear contacts, they serve as a reminder for all contact lens wearers to take simple steps to prevent infections.” 
 
 The findings in this report highlight the need for contact lens wearers to take good care of their lenses to help prevent contact lens-related eye infections. Three recommendations related to commonly reported and risky behaviors: 
 
 Don’t sleep in contact lenses without discussing with your eye doctor. While some lenses are approved for continuous overnight use, sleeping in lenses does increase the risk of an eye infection. When you find yourself at a last-minute overnight stay and don’t have your solution, don’t rely on tap water as it contains bacteria and other microorganisms that have been proven to cause serious eye infections. If this happens repeatedly, make an appointment with your eye doctor to check the fit of your lenses. People who do not replace their lenses as often as recommended have more complications and report more eye problems than those who follow the replacement recommendations.
– Sleeping with contacts in or forgetting to swap in a new pair according to schedule may be the unintended result of a harried lifestyle, but it could also lead to long-term eye damage, a new CDC study reports. Researchers looked at 1,075 cases of eye infections reported to an FDA medical device database over a 10-year period ending in 2015, and of those infections, almost 20% of them ended up causing more serious eye injuries, a CDC release reports. Those injuries ranged from scarred corneas and cornea transplants to other forms of vision problems. And of those who reported infections, the issue was bad enough for more than 10% of them to go to the ER or an urgent-care clinic for treatment. Yet most people don't give a second thought to the perfunctory way in which they handle their contacts, a Lenox Hill Hospital ophthalmologist tells WebMD. "Unfortunately, many of the 41 million contact lens users in the United States do not think of a contact lens as a medical device they are placing on the surface of their eye," Dr. Mark Fromer says. In addition to replacing contacts as recommended, users should also follow other recommendations from the American Optometric Association to keep eyes healthy, per CBS News, including not sharing contacts with anyone, not using tap water to clean contacts, and no snoozing with them in, which the CDC says can raise the risk of an eye infection between six to eight times. (And then there are the eyeball-devouring amoebas.)