Absolutes in the Contact Lens Industry

I see this all the time, almost every day. I think I've blogged about it before (edit: I have. Here's one from 2012 http://myeyepod.blogspot.com/2012/07/swimming-in-contact-lenses.html . Maybe I'll search later and look. Some well-meaning eye care practice or health-related Twitter account will tweet: "REMEMBER! Never wear your contact lenses in the water! ALWAYS remove them before swimming, showering or bathing!" OK I don't have too much issue with this, except for the word "always". "Always" and "never" bother me. So you're going to tell the -10.00 12 year old to take their contacts out before swimming? Really? And then what are they going to do? I mean I understand pool water and lenses and eyes and risk and all that, but at some point the benefits outweigh the risks, in my opinion, anyway. This is like saying "NEVER SPEED". OK I understand the sentiment, but *sometimes* speeding is necessary. While passing a vehicle and pulling into oncoming traffic to do so, for example. I am personally OK with most of my high myopes swimming in their contacts. I prefer they wear dailies if they can, and I tell them "the worst possible time to sleep in your contacts is the night after you went swimming in them." And I warn them that they could lose a lens while swimming, it's a risk. I also tell them that technically they are increasing their risk of serious corneal infection (hence all the tweeted warnings...). I looked it up one time, you are more liekly to get struck by lightning than you are to have a serious corneal problem from swimming in contact lenses. So I am not personally making my -10.00 patients swim in their glasses, or worse uncorrected. That's just dumb. In my opinion, that is.