A 67-year-old woman got 27 lost contact lenses removed from her right eye. She had been wearing contact lenses for 35 years.
A UK surgeon removed 27 contact lenses from a 67-year-year-old woman’s eye after they became lost.
The woman was unaware that she had lost the lenses and thought that the discomfort and dryness in her eyes were due to old age.
However, when doctors at Solihull Hospital in the UK inspected her eyes just before cataract surgery, they found the real cause of her discomfort was much more concerning – there were 27 contact lenses stuck in the woman’s right eye in a “blue mass.”
The woman had been wearing contact lenses for the past 35 years, however, she didn’t get her eyes checked regularly. It is unclear for how long the lenses had been gathering in her eye.
Rupal Morjaria, a specialist trainee in ophthalmology, said the woman hadn’t complained about any visual trouble before the operation.
Morjaria told Optometry Today, “None of us have ever seen this before. It was such a large mass. All the 17 contact lenses were stuck together. We were really surprised that the patient didn’t notice it because it would cause quite a lot of irritation while it was sitting there.”
On closer inspection, they found 10 more lenses.
The woman’s cataract surgery was delayed because of concerns over potential infection.
“When she was seen two weeks after I removed the lenses she said her eyes felt a lot more comfortable,” Morjaria said.
The case, which was published in the British Medical Journal, was made public to create awareness about having regular eye checkups.
Morjaria said, “In this day and age, when it is so easy to purchase contact lenses online, people become lax about having regular checkups. Contact lenses are used all the time, but if they are not appropriately monitored we see people with serious eye infections that can cause them to lose their sight.”
