Can I Nap With Contacts? A Scar Is the Realistic Cost

You should not nap with contact lenses unless your eye-care professional has prescribed a lens the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared for overnight wear and has told you that overnight wear is appropriate for your eyes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that sleeping in lenses, whether inadvertently, occasionally, or as part of a prescribed extended-wear schedule, increases the risk of a contact lens-related eye infection six- to eightfold. The worst realistic outcome of a nap is a corneal ulcer that heals as a stromal scar. In the CDC's 2018 case series, a 34-year-old who slept in lenses three to four nights a week finished treatment at 20/40 with spectacles; a 17-year-old who slept in store-bought lenses finished at 20/100, pinhole 20/60, with a stromal scar. Stapleton and colleagues (Ophthalmology, 2008) put loss of two or more lines of acuity after overnight soft-lens wear at 4.0 per 10,000 wearers per year.

I edit hearing-test language. I once expanded a clipped technical word into the wrong term and changed the meaning of the test explanation. "Extended wear" on a carton is a product category. Expanding it into personal permission for a 20-minute nap with contacts is the same class of error.

What actually happens to a lens while the eye is closed?

Closed lids cut the cornea off from room air. Holden and Mertz, in Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science in 1984, treated open-eye oxygen tension as about 155 mmHg and the closed-eye supply from the palpebral conjunctiva as about 55 to 57 mmHg. Their 36-hour wearing study found overnight swelling with no lens of about 4 percent. Matching that 4 percent with a lens in place required oxygen transmissibility of 87.0 ± 3.3 × 10⁻⁹ (cm × ml O₂)/(sec × ml × mmHg). Daily-wear lenses were held to 24.1 ± 2.7 × 10⁻⁹, enough to avoid extra swelling with the eyes open.

Tears also stop circulating. Meng Lin and Kenneth Polse, in Eye & Contact Lens in 2007, used fluorescein permeability of the epithelium as a barrier test. One hour of eye closure with a low-Dk/t soft lens reduced that barrier (32 paired eyes, P = 0.016). Six to eight hours of sleep with no lens did not. High-Dk/t closed-eye wear for one hour did not produce the same drop.

A drier lens shrinks onto the cornea and can stick. Forcing it shears epithelium. The Academy's 2023 Bacterial Keratitis Preferred Practice Pattern treats a contact-lens-related epithelial defect as an infection risk and advises against patching it. CDC Case 2 slept in lenses on a two-day hunt, received a bandage lens over an abrasion, then perforated a corneal ulcer after wiping his eye with a shower towel. Hypoxia, a stuck or scratched surface, and organisms already on the lens are how a short nap with contacts becomes a contact lens nap infection.

What should I do before an unplanned nap if I wear contact lenses?

Take the lenses out before you close your eyes. The CDC prevention page, updated 27 May 2025, puts the rule in one line: avoid sleeping in lenses unless directed by your eye-care provider. Thomas Steinemann, reviewing the 2018 CDC cases for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, tells patients not to nap in them either.

Wash and dry your hands with soap and a clean cloth. Remove each lens. If it is a true daily disposable, as the FDA defines that word (used once and discarded), throw it away. If it is a reusable daily-wear lens, rinse and store it in fresh prescribed disinfecting solution. Never water, never saliva, never leftover solution topped off in the well. Put on glasses that match your current prescription. The CDC's 2015 wear-and-care box already names backup glasses as the plan for the hour you cannot wear lenses.

A 20-minute close of the eyes feels like nothing. Lin and Polse's one-hour finding is the shortest published closed-eye interval I will cite. I have not seen a trial that clears a 20-minute nap.

If you cannot reach a case, do not park the lenses in a glass of tap water. Water is how Acanthamoeba and other environmental organisms reach the cornea. Leave the lenses out and wear the glasses until you have solution and a clean case.

How do daily disposable lenses differ from extended-wear lenses after I sleep in them?

Daily disposable, in FDA language, means used once and discarded. Alcon's delfcon A professional fitting guide states the lenses are for single-use daily disposable wear, less than 24 hours while awake, and are not intended to be cleaned or reused. After an accidental sleep, discard them. Dart, Radford, Minassian, Verma, and Stapleton, in Ophthalmology in 2008, found no daily-disposable wearer in their Moorfields series who lost vision to 20/40 or worse.

Reusable daily-wear lenses are not indicated for overnight wear. A Johnson & Johnson Acuvue package insert used in U.S. labeling walks new wearers up to "all waking hours" by day 5 (6–8 hours on day 1, then 8–10, 10–12, 12–14). A nap after 12 hours of wear is closed-eye time inside a waking-hours schedule. After that nap, rinse, rub if the care system says to rub, and disinfect with prescribed solution. Stapleton 2012 put infrequent case replacement at 5.4 times the risk of moderate or severe microbial keratitis (95 percent CI 1.5–18.9). Replace the case at least every three months.

Extended-wear lenses are a different FDA category: overnight or continuous wear from one to six nights, or up to 30 days, with a rest night after each scheduled removal. Lotrafilcon A has been labeled for up to 30 nights. The CDC still folds prescribed extended wear into the six- to eightfold infection increase. Dart 2008 printed relative risk 5.4 for overnight wear of any lens type (95 percent CI 3.3–10.9).

| After sleep | Daily disposable | Reusable daily wear | FDA extended wear, if prescribed | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Sleep on the label | Remove; discard after one day | Not indicated overnight | 1–6 nights or up to 30 days, then a rest night | | That pair | Discard | Rub, rinse, disinfect; never water | Follow the removal night | | Keratitis per 10,000/year (Stapleton 2008) | 4.2 if occasional overnight | 2.2 if occasional overnight hydrogel | 19.5 hydrogel; 25.4 silicone hydrogel | | Vision | No Dart 2008 DD wearer to ≥20/40 | <1 night/week: 6.5× moderate/severe MK (Stapleton 2012) | Two-line loss 4.0 per 10,000 overnight soft |

Eyeglasses sit outside this table. They do not create a closed-eye lens. An approved overnight product category is still a medical-device indication. The CDC still advises avoiding sleep in lenses unless your own clinician has directed it.

Which lens type, replacement schedule, symptoms, and hygiene habits determine the risk from a nap?

The nap pattern is occasional overnight use in people fitted for daily wear. Stapleton 2012 isolated it: less than one night per week of overnight use, 6.5 times the risk of moderate or severe microbial keratitis (95 percent CI 1.3–31.7).

True daily disposables are single-use. Planned-replacement lenses are commonly two-week or monthly. CDC Case 3 in 2018 was a 34-year-old who routinely slept in monthly lenses past the replacement date. Time since insertion runs on two clocks. The Acuvue insert's day-5 "all waking hours" is the daily clock. CDC Case 4 wore the same pair continuously for about two weeks, which is the replacement clock. A lens inserted at 7 a.m. and still in at a 3 p.m. nap has already used most of a waking-hours day.

Cope and colleagues, in the 2015 MMWR, estimated 40.9 million U.S. adult wearers. About 99 percent of Contact Lens Risk Survey respondents reported at least one infection-linked habit: napping 87.1 percent ever, overnight sleep 50.2 percent, topping off solution 55.1 percent, stretched case replacement 82.3 percent, tap-water rinse 35.5 percent. Poor case hygiene in Stapleton 2012 carried a 6.4-fold risk (95 percent CI 1.9–21.8). Smoking was 3.7-fold.

Lisa Keay's 2008 grading paper in Optometry and Vision Science treated "significant pain," a lesion in the central 4 mm, or an anterior-chamber reaction as the clinical door into microbial keratitis. The Academy's patient page lists sudden eye pain, unusual redness, reduced vision, light sensitivity, tearing, and discharge. CDC Case 3 presented after three days of sharp right-eye pain. Keay, Edwards, Naduvilath, Forde, and Stapleton, in Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science in 2006, found two-or-more-line vision loss in 14.3 percent of contact-lens microbial-keratitis cases, and delays of more than 12 hours before treatment increased that likelihood. Collier estimated nearly one million U.S. visits for keratitis or contact-lens complications in 2010, at $175 million. Among 1,075 FDA MedWatch reports from 2005 to 2015, 19.8 percent described a central scar, a drop in acuity, or a transplant.

My lens is stuck or my eye is red after a nap. What should I avoid, and when is it urgent?

Do not peel a stuck lens dry. Instill sterile saline or a rewetting drop approved for your lens material. Wait until the lens moves on a blink, then slide it off. If it will not move, stop and get in-person care. Do not use tap water, saliva, or leftover solution. Do not put the same lens back in to "test" the eye. Do not patch the eye. The Academy's 2023 Preferred Practice Pattern states that patching a contact-lens wearer who has a corneal abrasion is not advised, because it raises the risk of bacterial keratitis.

Leave the lenses out. Call an ophthalmologist or optometrist the same day if you have sudden pain, unusual redness, reduced vision, light sensitivity, tearing, or discharge. Those are the Academy's bacterial-keratitis symptoms. "Significant pain," in Keay's epidemiologic sense, is already more than dryness. For central or severe keratitis, the same practice pattern uses a loading dose of topical antibiotic every 5 to 15 minutes, then hourly drops.

Go to emergency or same-day ophthalmology if vision drops, if pain is sharp and climbing, if you see a white spot on the cornea, or if you cannot open the eye. CDC Case 4 arrived at light perception and hand-motion vision after two weeks of continuous wear; one eye needed a transplant, the other recovered to 20/40 with a central stromal scar. Keep the lens, the case, and the solution bottle if you can do so without rinsing them. Cultures in CDC Case 6 grew Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa from the eye, the lenses, and the case.

How should I handle reusable lenses after an accidental nap without using water?

1. Wash and dry your hands. Leave the lenses out until the bottle's disinfection cycle is finished.
2. Rub and rinse each lens with the disinfecting solution your eye-care professional named, unless that product is a no-rub system. Empty the case. Rub and rinse the case with the same solution, never water. Store it upside down with the caps off to dry, as the CDC instructs.
3. Fill the wells with fresh solution. Do not top off. Leave the lenses in for the full minimum disinfection time on the label.
4. Inspect each lens for chips, deposits, or a warped edge. Discard a damaged lens.
5. If the eye is white, comfortable, and sees as it did yesterday, you may reinsert after the cycle. If it is not, stay in glasses and call.

A daily disposable that spent a nap on the eye is finished. Recleaning it converts it into a homemade reusable. Rigid gas-permeable lenses follow their own solution system; 91.3 percent of rigid wearers in the 2015 CDC survey had rinsed lenses in water at least once. Replace the case at least every three months. Stretching that interval was independently associated with moderate or severe keratitis in Stapleton 2012.

What backup-glasses and lens-care plan makes naps less likely to become an eye problem?

Keep a current pair of glasses in the bag you actually carry. The CDC's 2015 box and the 2025 prevention page both say to carry backup glasses with a current prescription for the hour the lenses have to come out.

If you nap most afternoons, say so at the fitting. Daily disposables remove the case from that hour, provided you discard them. They do not authorize closed-eye wear. If your clinician decides you are a candidate for a true extended-wear lens, that decision is an examination. The FDA still wants a rest night after each scheduled removal. Ask how many nights, which brand, and what you must do on the removal night.

Replace lenses on the printed schedule. Replace the case every three months. Visit yearly, or sooner if the eyes change. Cope's 2017 MMWR on adolescents and adults found that stretching replacement and skipping the annual visit clustered with sleeping in lenses. A one hour nap with contacts is still closed-eye wear on a daily-wear prescription. The realistic cost, when the nap goes badly, is weeks of hourly drops and a scar that reads 20/40. Take the lenses out before the eyelids close.

Frequently asked questions

Can I nap with contacts in?

No. Remove daily-wear lenses before any nap unless your eye-care professional has prescribed overnight wear. The CDC states that sleeping in lenses, even occasionally, raises infection risk six- to eightfold. Thomas Steinemann of the American Academy of Ophthalmology tells patients not to nap in them.

Is a 20 minute nap with contacts safe?

A 20-minute close of the eyes is still closed-eye wear. Lin and Polse reported that one hour of eye closure with a low-Dk/t soft lens reduced epithelial barrier function (P = 0.016, 32 eyes). I have not seen a trial that clears a 20-minute nap for daily-wear lenses.

Can I sleep in contacts for one hour?

One hour of closed-eye wear with a low-oxygen soft lens raised epithelial fluorescein permeability in Lin and Polse's 2007 series. High-Dk/t lenses did not produce that one-hour change. There is no one-hour exemption in CDC or FDA labeling. Take the lenses out.

What happens if I accidentally sleep in my contacts?

You wake with a drier, tighter lens and a cornea that has swollen. Holden and Mertz measured about 4 percent overnight swelling with no lens; a lens adds hypoxia. Rewet with sterile drops, wait, then remove. Discard a daily disposable. Disinfect a reusable with prescribed solution, never water.

Do extended wear contacts mean I can nap in them?

Only if your eye-care professional prescribed overnight wear for that pair. The FDA describes extended-wear lenses as available for one to six nights or up to 30 days, with a rest night after each scheduled removal. The CDC still counts prescribed extended wear in the six- to eightfold increase.

Why do my contacts stick to my eye after a nap?

Closed lids cut atmospheric oxygen from about 155 mmHg to roughly 55–57 mmHg at the palpebral conjunctiva, and tear flow stagnates under the lens. The lens dehydrates and adheres. Forcing it can abrade the epithelium. Instill sterile saline or rewetting drops, wait until it moves, then slide it off.

Should I go to urgent care for a red eye after napping in contacts?

Leave the lenses out and contact an eye-care professional the same day if you have sudden pain, unusual redness, reduced vision, light sensitivity, tearing, or discharge. The Academy lists those as bacterial-keratitis symptoms. Keay found delays over 12 hours before treatment raised two-line vision loss. Do not patch the eye.