Yes, water can ruin contact lenses and, more importantly, put your eyes at serious risk for infection. Even brief exposure to tap water changes the shape of soft contact lenses and introduces microorganisms that standard cleaning solutions may not fully eliminate. The CDC recommends removing contact lenses before any water exposure, including showering and swimming.
How Water Changes the Shape of Your Lenses
Soft contact lenses are made from hydrogel materials designed to absorb a specific amount of fluid with a carefully controlled salt concentration. When these lenses come into contact with tap water, which has a very different chemical makeup than the saline solution they’re designed for, they absorb it unevenly. This causes the lens to swell and change shape.
How much a lens swells depends on its water content. Higher water-content lens materials can expand in diameter by over 50%, while lower water-content materials swell closer to 20%. Even small changes in lens geometry affect how the lens sits on your eye. A lens that no longer matches its intended curvature or depth can slide out of position, blur your vision, and press against the cornea in ways it wasn’t designed to. That mechanical stress can scratch the surface of the eye, creating an entry point for infection.
The Real Danger: Waterborne Infections
Shape distortion is a problem, but the bigger threat is what lives in water. Tap water, pool water, lake water, and even distilled water can harbor a single-celled organism called Acanthamoeba. This parasite has a high affinity for contact lens surfaces and clings to them readily, especially when protein or lipid deposits have built up on the lens. Once attached, it transfers directly to your cornea the next time you put the lens in.
Acanthamoeba causes a corneal infection called Acanthamoeba keratitis, which the FDA specifically warns is resistant to treatment and cure. Unlike a standard bacterial eye infection that clears up with drops in a week, Acanthamoeba keratitis can drag on for weeks or months. Symptoms include eye pain, redness, blurred vision, light sensitivity, excessive tearing, and the persistent feeling that something is stuck in your eye. These symptoms mimic more common infections, so it often gets misdiagnosed early on, giving the organism time to burrow deeper into the cornea.
Contact lenses act as a vehicle for delivering microorganisms directly to the eye. The lens traps pathogens against the corneal surface, where they stay in prolonged contact with tissue that’s already slightly oxygen-deprived from wearing a lens. That combination of reduced oxygen, microscopic surface scratches, and direct pathogen delivery is what makes water exposure with contacts so much riskier than splashing water in your eyes without lenses.
Showering, Swimming, and Hot Tubs
The CDC is unambiguous: remove your contact lenses before swimming, showering, or using a hot tub. This applies to all types of water. Chlorinated pool water kills many bacteria but does not reliably eliminate Acanthamoeba, which forms a tough protective cyst that resists chemical disinfection. Lake and ocean water carry additional bacterial and fungal risks. Even the tap water in your shower contains enough microorganisms to pose a threat when paired with a contact lens pressing against your cornea.
If you need vision correction while swimming, waterproof goggles are the safest option. Prescription swim goggles are widely available for both recreational and competitive swimmers and eliminate the infection risk entirely. Non-prescription goggles worn over contacts are a secondary option, but only if they fit snugly and don’t leak. Cheap or poorly fitting goggles that let water seep in defeat the purpose.
What to Do If Water Touches Your Lenses
If your lenses get splashed in the shower or exposed to water unexpectedly, remove them as soon as you can. The CDC recommends either throwing the lenses away or, at minimum, cleaning and disinfecting them overnight before wearing them again. “Overnight” is the key word here: a quick rinse with multipurpose solution is not enough. Acanthamoeba cysts are notoriously hardy, and a full disinfection soak gives the solution the best chance of neutralizing them.
Daily disposable lenses offer the simplest solution to accidental water exposure. If water touches them, you toss them and open a fresh pair. With reusable lenses, the stakes of proper disinfection are higher because any surviving organisms get reintroduced to your eye the next morning.
Warning Signs After Water Exposure
If you’ve worn contacts in water and notice eye pain, redness, blurred vision, or unusual light sensitivity in the days or weeks that follow, get to an eye care provider quickly. Acanthamoeba keratitis symptoms can take time to appear and often look identical to a routine eye infection at first. Mentioning the water exposure helps your provider consider the right diagnosis early, which matters because the treatment approach is completely different from standard antibiotic drops. Early detection significantly improves outcomes for an infection that otherwise becomes very difficult to resolve.