Did you know that animals can wear contact lenses ?  Vets use soft contact lenses as a protective bandage for animals when they have deeply scratched their cornea. Scratches can occur from fights, sharp plants and thorns, stings and just general pawing at their face.

 Once the cornea is torn it can become very painful and irritated for your pet who responses by rubbing the eye which can make matters worse.

Shallow scratches often heal themselves as your pets natural tear film acts to protect and heal the damage.  However scratches that are deeper and go beyond the first level of the cornea, or older animals where their protective tear film is naturally reduced due to their age and scratches where a bacterial infection is present are more at risk for the scratch to develop into a corneal ulcer.

Corneal Ulcers are very painful and they itch, it’s in these circumstances that your vet will consider the use of soft contact lenses.  Contact lenses act to  reduce and smooth your pet’s irritation,  protect the damage from the friction that the eyelids cause and bathes the eye in a protective moisture film.

The contact lenses that are popular with vets are the Bausch & Lomb Purevision contact lenses as they are an extended wear lens which your pet can safely and continuously have in their eyes for a few weeks, even during sleep.  Purevision contact lenses allow the oxygen to pass through to the cornea and the surface of the lenses are treated so they naturally keep the eye moist, aiding healing of the damage. 

 If a corneal ulcer is not treated it could result in your pet losing their vision.  Soft contact lenses offer an easy, and effective way to treat this problem where the alternative may have been expensive surgery.