Why should you never sleep with your contact lenses

Frozen and oozing with a thick, yellow pus, this can happen if you wear your contact lenses while you sleep.

In the United States, an ophthalmologist shared the macabre images that show the damage to a woman's cornea, as she regularly went to bed with her lenses.

Dr. Patrick Vollmer of the Vita Eye Clinic in Shelby, North Carolina, said she had a "pseudomonas ulcer in culture".

Basically, her cornea had been eaten away by bacteria on her contact lenses.

Dr. Vollmer said: "Pseudomonas bacteria are a major cause of ocular morbidity and its opportunistic characteristics quickly lead to permanent blindness. This will be the 4th case of cultivated pseudomonas that I treated in my clinic.

"The bacteria gnaws at the patient's cornea in a few days, leaving behind a white and pasty necrosis (dead tissue)."

Fortunately for the woman, he was able to administer antibiotic drops and steroids to reduce scars.

But she is still "very likely" victim of a permanent form of vision loss.

Dr. Vollmer added, "To be very clear, I never recommend sleeping in a brand of soft contact lenses. The risks are greater than the benefits each time.

"It takes a few seconds to delete your contacts, but a potential lifetime of irreversible damage if you choose to leave them"

"People need to see these images and remember, as well as their family and friends, to also be aware of the abuse of contact lenses."

About 1 in 500 people who wear contact lenses suffer each year from a form of infection.