contact lens lost in eye,contact lens miami,contact lens safety,Eye Health
It’s Contact Lens Health Week and we at The Center for Excellence in Eye Care promised to share this next crazy contact lens story with you last week. If you read our last contact lens blog, we went from a lens being lost for 28 years to 27 contact lenses here.
We constantly get the question…
“I fell asleep with my contacts in and I think one is now in the back of my eye. How do I remove it?”
Have you ever wondered any of the following questions?
- I just tried to take my contacts out and one of them is missing….
- Do contact lenses end up in your brain?
- If my optic nerve goes to my brain will this be dangerous?
- What happens if I fall asleep with my contacts?
These are ALL very popular QUESTIONS so this blog article is meant for all of you contact lens wearers out there.
According to CNN, in November 2016, a 67-year-old woman in the UK was scheduled for a routine cataract surgery.
She told her surgeons that her discomfort was caused by her old age and dry eyes.
While numbing the patient’s right eye that day, the anesthetist at Solihull hospital noticed a “blue mass.”
Ready for it?
That “mass” was actually a clump of 17 contact lenses.
And it doesn’t end there…
Another 10 lenses were discovered during an additional exam totaling 27 CONTACT LENSES IN THE BACK OF HER EYE.
This woman had been wearing monthly disposable contact lenses for 35 years but it is unknown for how long they had been gathering in her eye.
She told her surgeons that when she would try to remove a contact from her right eye, she sometimes “couldn’t find it.”
Doesn’t sound so crazy to some of us. Has that ever happened to you?
Where did it go?
The patient, like many of us, just figured she probably had dropped it along the way somewhere.
But in reality, each of those lenses was getting stuck in her eye along with the collection of others.
Have you ever thought maybe I dropped my lens?
It’s not in my eye…hmmm…well we can guarantee after reading this article, you will probably never forget! These warning signs will help!
Some warning signs of a trapped contact lens include:
- Sharp eye pain
- Scratchy eye pain
- Sensitivity to light
- Redness
- To compare, Dry eye feels more like a gritty sensation
Our doctors at CEEC remind us that soft contact lenses, like the disposable ones in this story, soak up bacteria like a sponge, making them really dangerous due to a “higher likelihood” of infection.
The good news is that this crazy horror contact lens story ended with a good ending.
After the 27 contact lens lump was found, they were successfully removed and the woman’s surgery was postponed.
Two weeks later, the patient returned and had her cataract surgery completed successfully.
Stay tuned this week for a fun Facebook competition and the chance to win a prize.
Please call us if you have any questions about the symptoms listed above or if you have felt a lens “go missing” at 305-598-2020. Our specialists can help you!
*infographic from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Also if you are tired of dealing with contact lenses, we offer Lasik and all types of refractive surgery at The Center for Excellence in Eye Care in order to help you instead of dealing with these kinds of contact lens headaches. Check out our Facebook page for our “Get Out of Contact Lens Special” or call us at 305-598-2020.
