Contact lens houston,Eye health,Lasik surgery
It is Contact Lens Health Week according to the American Optometric Association and in this week’s honor, we are kicking Monday off with an incredible story about one very mysterious contact lens.
Have you ever “lost a contact”? If you have, this story that made big news in AU may make you think twice…
After suffering from six months of a swollen, painful, droopy eyelid, a 42-year old woman in Dundee, Australia went in to see her doctors for a “pea-sized lump” on her left lid.
This lump started growing without any pain but grew bigger every month.
She had nothing else going on, no vision issues, no scars, and nothing else other than the inflammation.
Drs. Sirjhun Patel, Lai-Ling Tan and Helen Murgatroy published a case study in the British Medical Journal about this case.
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.
When they decided to remove it, something crazy happened. The doctors reported that right after it was removed, the cyst ruptured and that a hard contact lens was extracted.
Yes, we are all wondering the same thing. HOW LONG had this lens been in there?!
The patient spoke to her mother who confirmed that as a 14 year old teenager, the patient had experienced a blunt trauma.
28 YEARS AGO, 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.
The doctors realize now that the lens was actually 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…discovered 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 this week in order to drive home the point 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.
For more contact lens stories, visit our last blog which explains what happens when you fall asleep with a contact lens that “disappears” in the back of your eye when you wake up.
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 strange symptoms.
If you are suffering from light sensitivity, sharp or scratchy eye sensations, or any swelling/redness, please call us immediately at 713-626-5544 to have one of our specialists take a look!
Also, if you are looking to get RID of contact lenses and move forward with LASIK or another refractive surgery option that can help you with any contact lens headaches, we can help!
Until then – this infographic from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will DEFINITELY help you.
