Do not pull them out immediately. After a night asleep the lenses are dry and gripping your corneas, and yanking at them takes surface cells with them. Lubricate first, wait, then remove.
The next ten minutes
- Wash and dry your hands.
- Put in several drops of rewetting solution or sterile saline. More than feels necessary.
- Blink gently and wait a full minute. Repeat the drops if the lens still will not slide.
- Remove both lenses once they move freely — see proper technique. If one will not budge, see a stuck lens.
- Throw them away if they are disposable. Do not put them back in later.
- Wear glasses for the rest of the day, and ideally 24 hours.
Why one night matters
Not to alarm you — most single episodes cause nothing. But the mechanism is worth understanding, because it explains why the advice is firm.
With the eye closed:
- Tear exchange nearly stops. Debris and bacteria stay trapped under the lens rather than being flushed away.
- Temperature rises, which favours bacterial growth.
- The cornea swells slightly overnight, which makes the surface more vulnerable.
The measured result: sleeping in lenses raises the risk of microbial keratitis several times over compared with daily wear — and that holds even for lenses approved for overnight use. See sleeping in contacts.
Watch for these over the next 48 hours
Get seen the same day if any appear:
- Pain, particularly pain worse than the eye looks
- Light sensitivity
- Blurred vision that does not clear with the lenses out and glasses on
- Redness that does not settle within a few hours — see red eye with contacts
- Discharge, or a white or grey spot on the cornea
- A persistent feeling that something is in your eye — see the foreign body sensation
Mild redness and a gritty feeling for an hour or two after removal is common and usually settles. Anything that is getting worse rather than better is not.
Say it plainly at the appointment
If you do go in: “I fell asleep in my contacts.” That single sentence changes what the clinician looks for and how urgently they treat it. Nobody is going to lecture you, and withholding it only slows the diagnosis.
Going back to lenses
- Wait until the eye has been completely normal for 24 hours
- Start a fresh pair — never reinsert the ones you slept in
- Fresh solution, clean case, or a new case if it is due — see the case guide
If it keeps happening
Falling asleep in lenses once is an accident. Three times is a system problem, and the fix is practical rather than moral:
- Keep a case and solution by your bed, not in the bathroom. Most episodes happen because getting up felt like too much.
- Set an alarm for lens-out time rather than relying on intent.
- Switch to dailies. Removing them takes five seconds and needs no case or solution at the moment when you least want to deal with it.
- Ask about approved overnight lenses if your schedule genuinely makes removal impractical — shift work, on-call. They carry their own risks, but they are a supervised option rather than an accident. See extended wear.
General information, not a substitute for clinical care. Reviewed by Dr. Teresita Bollar, OD.
