An opthalmologist based in Newport Beach, California has removed 23 pieces of contact lenses from her patient’s eye.
Yes, you read that right. 23 pieces of contact lenses. That’s so unbelievable. How could this happen?
Dr. Katerina Kurteeva recently shared on her Instagram account about this particular case.
“I was just amazed myself. I was like, this is kind of crazy. I’ve never seen this before,” Dr. Kurteeva told TODAY. “All the contacts were hidden underneath the upper lid in a pancake stack, so to speak.”
The woman, who preferred to be anonymous, was already in her mid-70s and had been wearing contact lenses for 30 years.
She came to Dr. Kurteeva, complaining of a foreign body, and mucus in her eye. The woman finally came in after skipping her regular visits. She didn’t want to contract the coronavirus but this is what happened because of the delay.
At first, Dr. Kurteeva checked for corneal ulcer or conjunctivitis. When she ruled that out, she checked for an eyelash, pet hair, or other common objects that could have lodged in her eyes. But she didn’t see any. She did confirm there was a mucus discharge.
Dr. Kurteeva lifted the woman’s eyelid and saw a foreign object sitting there but it was too far to get out.
She then used a lid speculum to open the woman’s eyelids and applied an anesthetic drop. She saw contact lenses underneath and used a cotton swab to pull them out.
Dr. Kurteeva was shocked to see what was under this woman’s eye.
“It was literally like a deck of cards,” Dr. Kurteeva recalled. “It just kind of unraveled and formed a little chain link on her lid. As I’m doing it, I’m telling her, ‘I think I removed more than 10.’ And they just kept on coming and coming.”
She managed to remove 23 pieces of contact lenses in that eye.
Fortunately, there was no infection in the woman’s eye.
There was a mild irritation that was quickly soothed by anti-inflammatory drops. The woman went home relieved with no more pain in her eye.
It looked like the woman had a memory problem. She kept forgetting if she’d already removed her contact lenses. She used disposable contact lenses so she always opened a brand-new pack every time she used contact lenses.
Dr. Kurteeva said it might have gone to the eyelid pocket, or the fornix, where the contact lenses accumulated.
She also explained that, with age, the fornix becomes very deep. Because of the deep fornix, the contact lenses had space to sit on and it was only when it had reached a significant number or size that the woman felt it.
Dr. Kurteeva advised her to stop wearing contact lenses but the woman was “married to wearing contact lenses.” She will continue to wear them but she’ll be more careful from now on. Dr. Kurteeva shared that you can remove your contact lenses before you brush your teeth so you never forget.
View this post on Instagram
Want to learn more about what happened to the woman’s eye? Watch the video below.
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
