Corrective Lenses

[Shoot]

Do you guys who need corrective lenses (ie. nearsighted) wear contacts when you box/train/spar?

Sometimes I take my contacts out to do bag work. I'm thinking about sparring without them too. Just curious what other boxers with bad eyes do.

[twtguy]

i always get mine knocked out when i spar...maybe cause i suck. but, either way, they will fall out, cause unless youre god, you will get hit. it isnt necessary to take them out for bag work though.

[npk9]

Just get Ortho-K and you'll be fine.

[da_mill]

I got one of mine knocked out whilst sparring yesterday. my eyes SUCK tho id definitely prefer 2 wear them....

[eXcessiveForce]

I pretty much have always had to wear mine, my eyes aren't good enough to spar without correction. I have had them knocked out of my eye, but only from catching a finger in the eye or something.

I have had lasik in one eye, so now I don't require a contact in that eye. I will get lasik on the other one this year I think. But that will mean a couple months of no sparring.

[Paul-M]

Why will it mean no sparring? Does lasik give you sore eyes or something? I'm planning on getting it but don't know much about it.

[eXcessiveForce]

they cut a flap in the lens of your eye, Until the flap has totally healed it can be damaged. So generally they don't let you do contact sports for a few months.

[bodhisattva]

Originally Posted by Shoot

Do you guys who need corrective lenses (ie. nearsighted) wear contacts when you box/train/spar?

Sometimes I take my contacts out to do bag work. I'm thinking about sparring without them too. Just curious what other boxers with bad eyes do.

I'm kind of concerned about it, because some of my guys wear contacts. I'm always worried about their eyes getting banged up or something by the contact when they get punched in the face.

But these same guys are so blind that they can't box with out them ?!?! So we have no real solution at our disposal.

Sometimes they even pop out while we're boxing and we have to stop, look for a contact, and rotate another guy into the fight while the guy with contacts washes his contact with solution.

I'm just worried about it hurting their eyes.

[bodhisattva]

One of our members suggested to a guy who's contacts fell out that they might need to get them resized. He said his did that once, his doctor resized his contacts, and they quit bouncing out like little frogs.

[eXcessiveForce]

Soft contacts won't really hurt the eye, in fact they actually prevent getting a scratch from a fingernail or something, Anything that would damage your eye with a soft contact would have damaged the eye without,

Hard contacts are another matter entirely

honestly I have really considered eye protection goggles, I've seen people get their eyes messed up before, and it doesn't actually take much. I've come close a few times over the years with nearly taking very bad shots to the eye. lucky they always hit the orbital socket rather than the eye directly.

[bodhisattva]

Originally Posted by eXcessiveForce

Soft contacts won't really hurt the eye, in fact they actually prevent getting a scratch from a fingernail or something, Anything that would damage your eye with a soft contact would have damaged the eye without,

Hard contacts are another matter entirely

honestly I have really considered eye protection goggles, I've seen people get their eyes messed up before, and it doesn't actually take much. I've come close a few times over the years with nearly taking very bad shots to the eye. lucky they always hit the orbital socket rather than the eye directly.

I saw something pretty cool while doing a quick patrol around my local sporting goods store.

I typically migrate towards cage face mask helmets and protective handgear just because I like to stickfight now and then. I saw something pretty wild - it was a set of goggles that are actually cage/wire mask. They were for field hockey. I figured they'd be great for fighting with sticks.

They were expensive, 75-$100. But they were pretty cool. You might check them out instead of normal safety goggles.

[npk9]

As I mentioned before - Ortho-K is the way to go. I've been using it for the past 6 months and have had no problems.

Since no one asked what it is - I'm assuming that people already know. But for those of you who don't its hard contact that you wear and sleep at night. It slowly reforms your cornea (the way lasik does) but this is only temporary. You don't need to wear contacts during the day and the longer you use them the longer the refraction lasts. Of course this all depends on how bad your vision is. But I don't need to wear contacts during the day - I can spar and get hit in the eye with no worries.

[Britt]

My eyes are way too bad to spar without contacts. I couldn't see at all if I did. I'd love to get LASIK but contact sports can give you a detached retina unless you get the non-invasive no-flap kind, and my eyes are too bad for it until the technology improves. Ortho K sounds great, but I bet my eyes are too bad for it as well.

[Britt]

Sorry, I'm half remembering from when I did some research on it a few years ago. I think I'm actually thinking of a detached cornea or "flap slip." Googling it a little now it looks like retinal detachment can happen, but very rarely, so I guess I meant to say corneal injury. This is what I remember from the FDA website:

When is LASIK not for me?
You are probably NOT a good candidate for refractive surgery if:

* You actively participate in contact sports. You participate in boxing, wrestling, martial arts or other activities in which blows to the face and eyes are a normal occurrence.

http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/lasik/when.htm

[eXcessiveForce]

PRK just takes longer to heal, and involves a bit more pain.

There is a chance for Retinal Detachment in extremely nearsighted people anyway, apparently it can be increased with lasik. Also corneal collapse can occur if they take too much off. A good surgeon should tell you what your chances are for complications.

The flaps can come loose from scuba, contact to the eye, excessive g forces. But over time these lessen greatly. For military pilots the fear was during ejection the flap may dislodge leaving them with bad vision in a possible bad situation. No chance of this with PRK.

There are also intacts which are disks they implant right into the eye that change the shape.

The problem with hard lenses, is first some people do not tolerate them well, and second in increases the chances of corneal abrasion. and eye ulcers.