Show I HEALTH ON PARADE TO HANKS clev-battalions ‘ of er chemists 1 mil- - lions of Americans now just pop contact lenses ink) their eyes and forget about them Some- ‘f ' t I A ' t times they forget about them for far too long—lor weeks sometimes months The soft pliable pieces of plastic provide normal sight And you scarcely can feel them resting snugly against the delicate eyeball Tney're called extended-wea- r lenses Reports indicate that the carefree altitude inspired by these dime-size- d disks has cost far too many people the sight of an eye and hundreds more have forfeited te their ability ever again to wear these leases AU this has resulted from eye injury caused chiefly by infection or trauma And these conditions were brought on by the wearers themselves: They simply left the lenses too long in their eyes Or they failed to clean them carefully enough leavinggerms on the lenses that when reinserted infected the eyesfV takthe careless has wearer Typically en the lenses for grafted Usually nothing goes wrong: The lenses just stay in place and die wearer enjoys the freedom from cumbersome glasses Lenses also enable wearers to pursue strenuous activities like tennis and other sports without worrying about broken glasses But sometimes if someone abuses die wear a lens slides principles of long-ten- n to a cornea — the clear front of the eye By trying to remove the stuck lens the wearer may tear that delicate tissue and blindness may follow In such cases surgeons try restoring sight with a corneal transplant But sometimes that doesn’t work— the blindness is permanent All in the name of comfort Because somepeople leave their lenses in too long the Food and Drug Administration now recommends that extended-wea- r lenses be left in the eyes for no longer than seven days continuously without an overnight rest Only one in lenses gets 500 users of extended-we- ar into trouble each year and the degree of infection varies But to those affected of course die problem is significant Unfortunately too many contact-len- s t W-- com-fbrtab- wearers take their lenses for granted because they are so comfortable They leave them in too long don't clean diem carefully enough andeven use their own saliva to wet the lenses: As germ-laden continued 3 - V r if ‘ :V5£3S - |