A recent article published in Australia really made us think we needed to share some information with our patients and our followers about contact lens safety.  We get calls and questions about patients who believe contact lenses may be stuck in “backs of their eyes”. 

None of these stories are meant to frighten you, they are meant to share the proper way to care for your eyes, vision and contact lenses. 

After six months of pain, swelling and a droopy left eyelid, a 42-year old woman in Australia went to see her doctors for what she described as a “pea-sized lump”.

This lump started out with no pain but grew bigger over the months leading up to her visit.

There was nothing else going on, no scars, no vision issue, and nothing other to report than some inflammation.

 Drs. Sirjhun Patel, Lai-Ling Tan and Helen Murgatroy published a case study in the British Medical Journal about this case in Dundee.

MRI images showed a “well-defined ovoid nodule” (measuring 8mm wide) in her left eye socket which appeared to be a cyst in the soft tissue.

After their decision to remove it, the doctors reported that the cyst ruptured upon removal and that a hard contact lens was extracted.   

As you can imagine, the #1 question for the patient was – HOW LONG had this lens been in there?!

The patient spoke with her mother who confirmed that as a 14 year old teenager, the patient had experienced a blunt trauma 28 years ago.

*image from British Medical Journal

During a game of badminton she had been hit with a shuttlecock while wearing a contact lens. 

Much like you or I would have assumed,  the patient just figured that lens had been knocked out of her eye with the hit.  Her eyelid had swollen up but her primary care doctor had treated it and the swelling eventually went down with no question of a missing contact lens.

Looking back it seems that lens was knocked upwards into her upper eyelid which leads her case to represent the longest time between a “traumatic lens migration” and the presentation of eyelid swelling.

You may still be wondering…28 years later? How?

It is still unclear why her eyelid decided to flare up suddenly after lens stayed dormant in her lid for 28 years.

We share this story with you contact lens wearers to bring the point along that you should always do your best to pay attention to anything strange going on with your eye sensitivity, pain, vision, swelling? 

It is extremely important. You could have lost a lens, and yes, these could gather in the back of your eyes.

Stay tuned for a new blog coming up soon about when you fall asleep with a contact lens and that lens “disappears” in the back of your eye. 

Until then, please call our office if you have any contact lens questions or want to double check if you may have a “missing lens” somewhere that may be causing you some eye symptoms.

If you suffer from light sensitivity, sharp or scratchy eye sensations, or any swelling/redness, please call us immediately at 305-598-2020 to have one of our specialists take a look!