Swimming in contacts can lead to serious infections and other issues.

Contact lens wearers know the logistical challenges that can come with situations like travel or spending a night out. Another area where contacts can complicate things? Swimming.

Experts say you shouldn’t swim with your contacts in your eyes, but should people with poor vision be forced to navigate the pool, lake or ocean unable to see or to splash around in their glasses?

Just how bad is swimming in your contact lenses? HuffPost asked eye health experts to break down the risks involved and what you should do instead.

What happens if you swim in your contacts?

“It is bad to swim in your contacts,” Dr. James Kelly, an ophthalmologist and founder of Kelly Vision, told HuffPost. “Water – whether from a pool, ocean, lake or hot tub – contains bacteria, fungi and parasites that can get trapped under your contact lenses, increasing the risk of serious eye infections. The most concerning is Acanthamoeba keratitis, a rare but potentially vision-threatening infection that can cause severe pain, corneal ulcers and even blindness.”

Bacteria like Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Serratia marcescens are other sources of swimming-related infections, as are adenoviruses.

“A contact lens acts like a ‘sponge’ soaking up these organisms and chemicals and keeping them on the surface of the eye for as long as the contact lens is worn,” explained Dr. Thomas J. Stokkermans, an optometrist and medical writer and reviewer at All About Vision. “Contact lenses and contact lens cleaners can cause small erosions on the surface of the eye that allow microorganisms to penetrate the surface of the eye more easily.”

As you swim (or shower), these microorganisms can attach to your contact lens.

“They can then infect the cornea ― the clear membrane on the front portion of the eye ― and cause an ulcer, a serious infection of the eye that can lead to a scar or can even perforate the eyeball,” Stokkermans said.

Without prompt treatment, you might also experience permanent vision loss.

It’s bad enough to consider developing a painful infection that might blind you, but what makes a situation like Acanthamoeba keratitis even worse is how difficult it can be to diagnose and treat.

“Sometimes in the early stages, it can look like many other things, which makes diagnosis hard, so patients usually present to us when it’s very, very late stage after they’ve gone through multiple providers,” said Dr. Masako Chen, an ophthalmologist at New York Eye & Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai. “You have to find the cornea specialist who is familiar with this, which can be challenging even in major cities and much harder in rural areas.”

If the infection has gotten really bad, she noted they might have to do a corneal transplant to replace the whole cornea, then other follow-up surgeries........

© HuffPost