Why You Shouldn't Shower In Your Contacts

This common behavior may lead to severe pain, vision loss and more.

As a longtime contact lens wearer, I’ve generally felt confident in my understanding of eye health and hygiene. I never sleep with my lenses in, always wash my hands before handling them and do my best to replace each pair with a new one at the recommended time.

But when I came across a Texas woman’s harrowing story on Instagram, I realized I was completely ignorant of another risky behavior, one that I do almost daily: wearing contacts in the shower.

“I went blind in one eye from showering in my contacts and had to get a cornea transplant,” Rachel Prochnow noted in a Reel she posted last month.

As the Austin local shared on social media, she was diagnosed with a severe parasitic eye infection known as Acanthamoeba keratitis in July 2023, following weeks of visits with doctors who couldn’t identify why her eye suddenly hurt so much.

The ensuing months were filled with “excruciating” pain, out-of-town medical appointments, hourly eyedrops, expensive and debilitating treatment, loss of vision and ultimately, a cornea transplant in the summer of 2024, she said.