You’re not supposed to sleep, shower or swim with contacts. Sleep- easy. Shower-fine I imagine. But how do people who can’t see swim? I don’t see people (ie adults) wearing goggles at the beach or pool unless they’re long distance swimmers. Do people wear prescription sunglasses to lounge in the pool? Like what is the deal?
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They do make prescription goggles for actual swimming, but the general answer is that we either keep our prescription glasses/sunglasses on for lounging or just muddle through it without them.
You basically go blind or wear glasses to the pool and then take them off and get in. I’m super short sighted and while it takes some enjoyment out of it most people can swim and play fine without glasses. Just wont catch balls well or read signs.
There are indeed prescription sunglasses- most preferable option for lounging and pool swimming (easy to find if they fall off from say, sending a cannon ball).
Open water, usually folks can see enough to make their way back to shore / floating object (boat, paddle board, etc) they swam from, and then pu their glasses back on.
FWIW, there are prescription swim goggles too but as you said, not many adults rock those at the beach.
If someone’s prescription is mild enough where they can wear contact lenses in the first place, they can generally perform most important life functions other than driving without them. It would just be annoying that they’d have to walk twice as close to a sign if they needed to read it.
The washing part of the shower is easy sans contacts, but shaving one’s legs? Not so easy. Anything 5 or more inches from my face is a blur and glasses fog up. I put in contacts on shave days so I can actually get it done. I’ve never heard that one shouldn’t wear contacts in the shower and haven’t had any issues with it.
I’m sure you’re not supposed to but it’s not like they just fly out of your eye if you get near water, I’ve showered and swam in contacts for like 30 years and can’t remember ever losing one.
Some people who wear contacts do not remove them when they swim, nor when they shower. I’m not saying it’s ok, but it’s not uncommon.
The problem with contacts in the pool is the chance for infection from the pool water. Not that you’ll lose one.
Odd but true – you have difficulties seeing under water because the water/eye interface has a different change in refractive index to the air/eye interface, and effectively makes you long sighted. My dad was very short sighted and could see reasonably well under water without goggles. Which was probably useful as he never learned to swim…
Keep in mind people’s perscriptions vary wildly. There are those that just need a very light correction and things are just a little soft without contacts/glasses, there are those that have difficulty reading, adn there are those that really can’t see anything other than very vague shapes and colors (”legally blind” often is like this… it doesn’t necessarily mean you only see black or nothing at all).
I don’t wear contacts but wear glasses. I don’t wear my glasses in the pool. I just deal with bad vision. Don’t expect me to read anything. If you have really, really bad vision (like you’re legally blind and need super super thick glasses) you’re probably not wearing contacts, and I think they make corrective swim goggles if you really needed them.
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