Look no further if you want a particularly memorable reminder to remove your contacts every night or just prefer a brand-new sleep paralysis demon. We’ll warn you, it’s rather gory. A video from an optometrist in Newport Beach, California, has gone viral after showcasing a woman having no less than 23 contact lenses removed from her eye.
In an interview with Insider, optometrist Katerina Kurteeva said, “Toward the end of the day, a patient in her mid-70s who wore daily contact lenses came in stating she thought she had something in her eye that she couldn’t get out.”
“My thoughts immediately turned to what it might be, including a fragment of a damaged contact lens, a cut on the cornea, an infection, an eyelash, or makeup residue. I wouldn’t be certain until I had the test, though.
Kurteeva started the routine examination by putting a yellow stain on the patient’s eye to make any scrapes or foreign objects more visible. She was shocked to find nothing as she looked across the cornea and into the upper and lower fornixes (small pockets in the eyelid where sensitivity is lower and items can sometimes get caught).
I didn’t see a lot, she admitted to Insider. Only a small amount of mucus, may be a normal reaction to irritation. I was perplexed.
She then adopted a new strategy. She reached for an eyelid speculum, a small, useful device that can hold both the upper and lower eyelids open simultaneously, despite having a dystopian appearance. Kurteeva was then able to conduct a more thorough examination with her hands-free.
She then noticed it. She claimed, “I could see the edges of a few contacts clinging to one other when I urged her to look down.” I requested my assistant to get my phone so I could record the removal after pulling them out since I thought I could still see more.
Bananas, I presume. Even Kurteeva was startled by the accumulation; she called it “a big, dark-purple ball of contacts” that “nearly appeared like a second pupil.”
She told Insider, “In my 20 years as a doctor, I’ve never seen anything like it.
We are aware of your thoughts. How, really, how, could someone fail to notice that they had 23 contact lenses inserted in their eye?
Kurteeva said, “It’s obviously weird, but not impossible.” The patient’s advanced age may have had a role in some of it; because older people’s fornixes are deeper, there is more room for any neglected lenses to hang out until they start to affect the patient.
However, the contact lenses themselves most certainly played a significant role as well. To put it frankly, it’s not surprising that your eyeballs become a little less sensitive over time if you repeatedly insert foreign objects into them: According to Kurteeva, wearing contact lenses for an extended period of time can desensitize the corneal nerve endings. She wouldn’t have experienced wearing 23 contacts as sharply.
Whatever happened, the patient was extraordinarily fortunate to have survived so undamaged. With over two dozen in there, Kurteeva cautioned, “she may have lost her vision, damaged her cornea, or acquired an infection.” Even one lost contact lens can result in potentially disastrous issues.
Although the video is quite gory to see, it serves as yet another important reminder to adhere to the recommended contact lens maintenance guidelines.
Kurteeva told Insider, “I feel incredibly blessed to have captured this on camera to warn people to take out their contact lenses every single night. Although it had a pleasant ending, things could have turned bad very quickly.
