Costume Contacts Hazardous To Your Health

PALM DESERT – Cosmetic contact lenses may be the perfect touch to your Halloween costume, but arethey hurting your eyes? The American Optometric Association is warning consumers about the dangers of wearing decorative contact lenses without a prescription from an eye doctor.

“You leave yourself absolutely open to eye infections, possibly permanent scarring on your cornea that could decrease your vision forever,” says Optometrist Don Adkins with Actavision in Indian Wells.

Specially made contact lenses can turn a normal pair of eyes into cat, zebra-colored, even completely blacked out eyes. Thanks to crackdowns from the Food and Drug Administration, every set of contact lenses, even those just for Halloween, are medical devices and need a prescription. Those laws extend outside the offices of eye doctors. But because optometry offices don’t sell many pairs it’s not profitable for them. It is for unauthorized sellers that push thousands of them.

“I had a patient not too long ago who bought lenses at a swap meet. They did not fit, luckily the damage wasn’t permanent, we were able to rehabilitate her corneas,” Adkins says.

Cosmetic contact lenses are easy to find, you can get them in-store even online. This Halloween store in Palm Desert sells them but they also require you to sign a form that says you understand the dangers and will see an eye doctor before you wear them.”

“As of three years ago there are some companies that are allowed to sell me, a retailer in California, contacts as long as I provide the customer with this liability release form signed, they sign it for me. I give them specific instructions on the care of and the warnings and all that,” says Lynn Abdelnour with Halloween Gear in Palm Desert.

So make sure to keep an eye out before buying these accessoriesand see an eye doctor. If you would like more information about contact lenses and to find an eye doctor near you, log on to kesq.com