You get an annoying itch around your eye, and start
to rub it with your hand—but soon, you regret it.
Your contact lens slips out of place.
Looking around, you can’t find it anywhere
near you, and go to get a new one.
What you don’t realize is that the lens never
fell out, it actually got lost in your eye.
What happens when someone loses a lens
in their eye but doesn’t realize it?
For one woman, her concern wasn’t just a lost contact lens lodged in
her eye… it was 23 lenses that got stuck inside her body for months.
Let’s get into it!
A 42-year-old woman living in the UK had noticed a little
bit of drooping with her upper left eyelid recently.
It wasn’t too noticeable, so she didn’t
think much of it and went on with her life.
But after six months, the same eyelid was swollen, a
lump had grown on it and had become painful to touch.
The woman saw her family doctor, who referred
her to an eye doctor to investigate the issue.
Her vision was fine, and both of her eyes
seemed normal other than the swelling.
There was no strange discharge, sensitivity, or redness.
However, doctors could feel a small lump under the skin of the upper
left eyelid, and they decided to take an MRI scan to see what it was.
The scan revealed that the lump had the
characteristics of a well-defined cyst.
It was about eight millimetres long,
located just above the patient’s left eye.
The patient’s doctors decided to do surgery to remove
it, and something inexplicable happened in the process.
Right after being removed, the cyst ruptured, breaking
open to reveal one extremely fragile contact lens.
The woman and the doctors were stunned.
It was a hard contact lens, also known as a rigid gas permeable
contact lens, but the patient didn’t wear these types of contacts.
She hadn’t used hard contacts since she
was a teenager, almost three decades ago.
It was her mother who figured out what happened.
She remembered that when her daughter was fourteen, the girl was
playing a game of badminton when a shuttlecock hit her left eye.
She recovered quickly from the injury with no unusual
symptoms, but never wore hard contact lenses again.
The contact lens was lost after the girl was hit in her eye,
and she wasn’t able to find it, so the family just assumed
it had been knocked out and lost on the ground somewhere.
But the lens had actually moved into the girl’s
upper left eyelid, pushed by the impact, and remained
trapped there for 28 years without anybody knowing.
Doctors assume that the drooping eye, swelling, and
inflammation were all caused by the contact lens, but they
couldn’t explain why it hadn’t caused any issues for so
long, or why the symptoms would have appeared suddenly.
There didn’t seem to be any triggers that could have
caused the symptoms to start after so many years.
If you find that hard to believe, wait
until you hear about this next case.
A 67-year-old woman in the UK was being prepped
for a routine eye surgery to address her cataracts.
For 35 years, she had been wearing monthly contact lenses
without issues, so she didn’t make many visits to the eye doctor.
Her eyes were a little uncomfortable, but she assumed
this was a common condition caused by old age and dry eye.
For her cataracts procedure, doctors
needed to numb her eyes for surgery.
One doctor lifted her right eyelid and was about to apply the
anesthetic when he saw something strange and had to stop the injection.
Under the top eyelid, deep in the woman’s right eye, was a huge
blue mass, unlike anything the doctors had ever seen before.
They took a closer look and discovered that the mass was
actually a clump of 17 contact lenses, held together by mucus.
Upon closer inspection, a second clump was found
in the same eye, this time with ten contact lenses.
In total, doctors removed 27 lenses that
the woman had lost in just her right eye.
The surgery was immediately postponed, because the existence
of soft lenses in the woman’s eye posed a risk of infection.
Soft lenses can be almost like a sponge that absorbs bacteria, and
having so many in an eye for an unknown period of time meant that
there would have been a lot of bacteria if the doctors had operated.
None of the doctors previously thought it was
possible for this many contact lenses to be lost,
and especially for them to not cause major issues.
They noted that the patient had deep set eyes, which
might have made it easier for multiple lenses to be lost.
The woman explained that sometimes when she tried to
remove a contact from her right eye, she couldn’t find
it and thought she must have dropped it somewhere.
The woman’s left eye had no lost lenses at all, and
actually had better vision than the right one, which made
sense now that the lost contacts had been discovered.
The lenses were removed, after two weeks the patient reported
that her eyes were much more comfortable than before.
Doctors decided to publish the case in BMJ because none
of them had even heard of something like this before,
and most didn’t believe that it was possible to lose so
many lenses in their eyes without severe complications..
They weren’t the only spectacle ones… I mean skeptical ones—many
people online commented on the story and how unusual it was
that the woman didn’t notice the lenses lost in her eye.
Most people who have had a contact lens stuck experience
irritation, redness, discomfort, and eye infections.
But this patient wasn’t the only one.
Another case that went viral on Instagram, collecting millions
of views, shows footage of a doctor in California who recorded
the process of removing 23 contact lenses from a woman’s eye.
The patient sought medical attention for pain and blurriness in her eye.
The graphic video shows a close-up of the woman’s eye as
the doctor lifts the upper lid to reveal a large green mass.
Using a cotton swab, the doctor slides out clumps of contact lens
after another after another, and the patient is shocked that any
lenses were lodged in her eye, much less stacked like pancakes.
Many of the lenses had been sitting under the patient’s eyelid
for a month, and were stuck together so tightly that the
doctor had to use a fine surgical instrument to separate them.
Apparently, the patient had no idea how she
could have forgotten to remove so many lenses.
The doctor who posted the video, ophthalmologist
Katerina Kurteeva, warns people to be more diligent.
The video is captioned “Don’t sleep in your contact lenses!”
According to the CDC, 45 million people
wear contact lenses in America alone.
Using them means an increased risk of eye infections, since people
touch their eyeballs with their fingers and insert a foreign object,
and it’s especially risky if they don’t follow proper care guidelines.
If an infection progresses, it can have
severe consequences including blindness.
Many people get used to using contacts after years of
wearing them everyday, and this can lead to desensitization
of their eyes as well as forgetting to be diligent.
When the eye adjusts to wearing contacts, the cornea
becomes less sensitive and people may not notice when
something is off, like these cases we heard about.
The FDA recommendations for contact lens usage includes
having a proper and up to date prescription for your
eyes, as contact lenses are specific to the user.
Contacts also should not be bought over-the-counter,
as this means they are sold without a prescription from
unlicensed vendors that are not guaranteed to be safe.
Make sure you received the exact right brand
and specifications for your prescription.
There are many different types of contact lenses.
There are RGP lenses, known as hard contacts, that are
durable and last longer, and soft contacts made of flexible
plastics that allow oxygen to get through to the eye.
Some contacts are daily wear, while others
can be worn for two weeks or 30 days.
No matter what type of contacts are being used, it’s crucial to read
the instructions for each type and know what you should or shouldn’t do.
It’s especially important to note how long you should wear
your contacts for, and how often your eyes should have a break.
Even if you have perfect vision, it’s still necessary to get a
prescription for decorative lenses, since they are still considered
medical devices, and places that advertise them as cosmetics and sell
them without a prescription in the United States are breaking the law.
Decorative lenses are not “one size fits all,” and
an eye doctor should measure each eye to properly fit
the lens and see how your eyes will react to contacts.
An improperly fitted lens can cause scratches on the
cornea, an eye infection, pink eye, and loss of vision.
The FDA recommends against buying lenses over-the-counter
from any source, including online, street vendors, Halloween,
costume, novelty, beauty supplies and cosmetics stores.
Clean your lenses properly by following the instructions
on the product and those given by your eye care provider.
Usually, multipurpose contact lens solutions should
be replaced three months after the bottle is opened.
Always use the new lens case that comes with every box and make
sure to read the guidelines on the box, as different solutions have
different instructions and companies sometimes change their formulas.
And never reuse lens solutions.
Other basics include removing lenses before swimming
and not exposing them to any water, which can
contain microorganisms that can cause infections.
Don’t transfer contacts to smaller travel containers
as they are not guaranteed to be sterile, and never put
your lenses in your mouth or in contact with saliva.
Remember not to wear your contacts overnight unless prescribed
to do so, as this increases the risk of infection and distresses
the cornea by reducing the amount of oxygen getting to the
eye and sometimes even causing damage to the cornea surface.
Finally, never ignore symptoms of eye infections and
discomfort, including irritation, discharge, tearing,
increased light sensitivity, itchiness, burning, gritty
feelings, redness, blurry vision, swelling, and pain.
If you experience these symptoms, remove your contacts
and keep them off, and contact an eye care professional.
Don’t throw out the lenses, because they might be
useful for a professional to understand what happened.
Your eyes are an extremely important part of
your body, so caring for them is a priority.
Even though many people wear contact lenses without
major issues, taking risks is not worth damaging your
eyesight, or finding yourself in an eye-palling situation.