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Weed and Contact Lenses
Most medical professionals state that smoking tobacco (not counting for the smoke) is bad for your eyes as it can increase the risk of getting a cataract, and also macular degeneration. Tobacco smoke also causes eye redness and can make your eyeballs dry and irritated.
It can be especially damaging for a tobacco smoker who wears contact lenses when smoking as the smoke makes it harder for your eyes to produce tears. Lower production means a higher chance of you getting dry eye. So, you may be wondering if weed smoke has the same effect when it comes to your eyes and contact lenses. I will examine this and more in this article.
Weed Smoking and Contacts
According to studies, weed-smoking and contacts are to be avoided as cannabis smoking has been shown to cause dry eyes. Additionally, contact lenses make dry eyes worse. This is likely not a surprise to a pot smoker as one of the side effects of ganja is red, bloodshot, and dry eyes. The question that needs to be asked is how bad the problem is and what can be done to fix the problem?
Dangers of Dry Eyes
Dry eyes are quite common and happen when an eye’s tear ducts are not capable of providing enough tears to adequately lubricate your eyes or the tears for whatever reason do not adequately water your eyes. Dry eyes, if left untreated, can cause many issues, like corneal abrasions and ulcers, and eye inflammation.
Dry eyes are caused by many conditions. Some of which are listed below:
● Autoimmune Disease
● Allergies
● Hormonal Change
● Smoke Irritation
One major cause though is smoke irritation that is often caused by either tobacco or cannabis smoking. Any smoke, which includes cannabis smoke, can make the problem worse.
Weed and Contact Lenses
First of all, contact lens wearers are more likely to have dry eyes. (The official name for this is contact lens-induced dry eyes). One main reason for this is that the surface of the contact lens, as it is on your cornea, blocks beneficial oxygen from reaching your eyes. This in turn causes your eyes to be dryer than they should be. Contact lens makers have attempted to fix this problem by designing their lenses to let in more oxygen. However, it is still a problem as it is not natural to have objects (contact lenses) in your eyes.
Dry eyes, via contacts, can be made worse when the contact is of poor quality or is not fitted correctly. Also, you can have this same problem when you wear quality contact lenses for too long.
Additionally, contacts absorb the tears that are meant for your eyes. Tears provide many benefits to your eyes. Some of the more common benefits are:
● Reduce eye Dryness
● Tears wash away foreign objects in your eyes
● Give your eyes needed oxygen and nutrients
● Heal surface damage
● Help provide a smooth surface on your eyes, which helps you see more clearly
As a result, damage to your eyes can occur when your tears are not as effective or your eyes are not getting enough tears as they should get.
How Do You Treat Dry Eyes?
I answered this question previously, in this article on eye drops for stoners.
Final Thoughts
Whether or not you should smoke weed while wearing contact lenses is based upon common sense and your particular situation. To be absolutely safe, you should only smoke weed while wearing glasses. However, you likely will not have to be that drastic if you apply common sense I.E. It is common sense that you should wear glasses if you had your extended wear contact lenses in too long already and your eyes are already dry and itchy. Also, you should think about wearing glasses while getting high when you are trying out your new gas mask bong, recently had eye surgery, or are going to be trying that hot box technique you saw recently on Reddit.
APPENDIX
Does Cannabis Help Relieve the Symptoms of Glaucoma?
Even though weed smoke may not work well with contact lenses; smoking cannabis has been shown, via clinical studies to help with glaucoma. Glaucoma is an optic nerve disease that is caused by excess intraocular pressure of the eye. The excess pressure if left untreated can cause severe vision loss and blindness. The increased pressure is caused by a normally beneficial fluid that flows in your eyes. Normally, this fluid will drain out and everything will be just fine. Increased pressure though will happen when you either overproduce this eye fluid or the fluid does not drain as well as it should.
Symptoms
There are different types of this disease. So, what symptoms that you have will depend upon what type that you have. Some of the major symptoms are blind spots on the side of your eyes, tunnel vision, blurry vision, red eyes, extreme headaches, vomiting, and nausea, and seeing halo-like objects when you are looking at lights. So, if you experience any of these symptoms go to your eye doctor ASAP and get an eye exam pronto.
Treatment
Glaucoma is treated by lowering eye pressure. To do this, after being diagnosed the first treatment will likely be prescribed eye drops and if that doesn’t work you then maybe prescribed oral medicines. Hopefully, eye surgery will not be needed. If it is needed it will likely be laser eye surgery.
Does Cannabis Help Relieve Eye Pressure?
Cannabis has been shown to relieve eye pressure. It has been shown to help so much that in the 70s., medical cannabis was allowed by the federal government to be legally smoke on compassionate grounds for some sufferers. However, at least according to this publication, there are far better solutions now, than cannabis, for reducing and treating glaucoma.
