A Woman Had 23 Forgotten Contact Lenses Stuck In Her Eye

EnolaGaia

EnolaGaia

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This situation is hard to understand. A California ophthalmologist posted on Instagram about a case in which she removed 23 contact lenses from an elderly woman's eye. Somehow the patient didn't realize there were already contacts in her eye. There's a video, but you have to log into Instagram to view it. The photo on the Instagram posting is wince-worthy.
Doctor Removes 23 Forgotten Contact Lenses From Patient’s Eye

A California ophthalmologist recently shocked the internet by posting a video of herself extracting 23 forgotten contact lenses from a patient’s eye.

Last month, Katerina Kurteeva, an eye doctor out of Newport Beach, California, posted an Instagram video of herself carefully removing a few contact lenses from a patient’s eye. ... Kurteeva claims to have removed no less than 23 old contact lenses that her patient, an elderly woman, had forgotten in her eye for months, maybe even years. The video went viral a few days ago, leaving millions scratching their heads about someone could simply forget that many contact lenses in their eye. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.odditycentral.com/news/doctor-removes-23-forgotten-contact-lenses-from-patients-eye.html

INSTAGRAM POST (With Photo): https://www.instagram.com/p/CjIzDvz...d&ig_rid=ae7da047-6f87-4f9f-9c95-348f8310ef3d
 
Can't understand this at all. People I know who wear contact lenses say that they are aware when wearing one set of lenses. When ordering new lenses, presumably no one questioned why so many replacements were needed.
 
My wife did that once with one set. Mind you we were on holiday, had been out on the town and were a bit wasted.
To keep on jamming the damn things into your eyes though, must be dementia or something.
 
I am considering trying out daily contact lenses but these sorts of stories of lost contact lenses scare me so much.

I am not sure I would get on with them at all. I will do a trial at some point.
 
I wonder if nobody explained to this lady that she had to remove the previous lens before she inserted a new one. Maybe she thought they dissolved or something? People can, after all, be incredibly stupid.
 
PeteS said:
Can't understand this at all. People I know who wear contact lenses say that they are aware when wearing one set of lenses. When ordering new lenses, presumably no one questioned why so many replacements were needed.
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I've worn them for 20+ years and am only intermittently aware when the are "in" as it were: occasional dryish eye, occasionally they move and/or go slightly out of focus but this is fleeting. In that time I've only gone to bed with them in a handful of times, the last was quite recent and I awoke noticing something was amiss and it took a few minutes to realise the issue was that I could see clearly!

I can imagine it would be easy for an elderly person to forget and 23 contacts does suggest dementia type issues...
 
Ogdred Weary said:
I've worn them for 20+ years and am only intermittently aware when the are "in" as it were: occasional dryish eye, occasionally they move and/or go slightly out of focus but this is fleeting. In that time I've only gone to bed with them in a handful of times, the last was quite recent and I awoke noticing something was amiss and it took a few minutes to realise the issue was that I could see clearly!
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That happened to me many years ago. The lenses had to be rehydrated before I could remove them. Had a panicky time with that.
I abandoned contact lenses and went back to specs after that.
 
Mythopoeika said:
That happened to me many years ago. The lenses had to be rehydrated before I could remove them. Had a panicky time with that.
I abandoned contact lenses and went back to specs after that.
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A friend of mine gave up on lenses after a drunken panic where he nearly clawed his corneas off, convinced his lenses were still in when he had already taken them out...
 
Ogdred Weary said:
A friend of mine gave up on lenses after a drunken panic where he nearly clawed his corneas off, convinced his lenses were still in when he had already taken them out...
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That was exactly my own experience! Didn't want a repeat of that!
I mean, the getting drunk bit, not the clawing bit.
I went to bed drunk, woke up in the morning and wondered why I could see without my glasses. Had to induce tears to remove the damn things.
 
catseye said:
I wonder if nobody explained to this lady that she had to remove the previous lens before she inserted a new one. Maybe she thought they dissolved or something? People can, after all, be incredibly stupid.
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I wonder why no one has been able to invent dissolving lenses yet? That sounds a fantastic idea.... :D

I know - eyes are wet. How would you invent them to not dissolve before the day is over etc etc...

It would be great though.

I am worried that if I can get over putting them on my eyes, I might not be able to take them off again....:oops:

To think I used to see people putting them in on a train - I was horrified at the thought of it.

I was lucky enough to have great eyesight and no need for any lenses at all. Then in my 40s I noticed my eyesight was a bit less good on small print (ingredients lists etc in supermarkets on food) and I was getting tired computer eye strain. I was prescribed reading glasses and my eyesight has got worse every test.

I am now trying to get used to multifocal lensed glasses. I don't really like wearing them all the time.

Sadly my general vision without glasses is blurred. I can go out without them but reading anything is not possible....

The main thing I am trying to get used to is glasses make everything seem closer than it really is. Judging the distance between myself and objects is a bit out of synch. And if I do things without my glasses on, I can knock things over because I don't realise how close they are. Or am I a bit strange?

I seem to be ageing a bit lately....I am getting old people's fingers too - e.g. can't open this packet syndrome.
 
EnolaGaia said:
case in which she removed 23 contact lenses from an elderly woman's eye
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I'm sure this is a story from months and months ago?
Reason being is that I have often had the thought if I'm a bit well-oiled that I must remember to take my lenses out, cos I don't want to end up like that woman who had all those lenses stuck in her eye.
Or was it some other similar story?
 
Trevp666 said:
I'm sure this is a story from months and months ago? ...
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The ophthalmologist's original Instagram postings were done in September (last month; as recently as 2 weeks ago). The Oddity Central article mentions a prior case that occurred "years ago", but gave no specifics of time or place.
 
I found the earlier story. A total of 27 forgotten contacts were removed from a British woman's eye in November 2016. It was reported in The BMJ and Optometry Today in July 2017. Here's the Optometry Today article ...
UK surgeon finds 27 missing contact lenses in woman’s eye

A “blueish mass” of 17 contact lenses has been discovered in the eye of a patient who was scheduled for cataract surgery.

The 67-year-old patient was unaware that the contact lenses were missing, and later told surgeons that she thought her discomfort was due to dry eye and old age.

Specialist trainee ophthalmologist, Rupal Morjaria, told OT that another 10 individual contact lenses were discovered in the woman’s eye following further examination at Solihull Hospital.

The operating team, which included an ophthalmologist with more than 20 years of experience, were startled by the discovery ...

“None of us have ever seen this before,” she added.

“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” ...

The cataract surgery was postponed following the discovery due to an increased risk of endophthalmitis.

“Because she had harboured these contact lenses in her eye for an unknown length of time, if we had operated she would have had a lot of bacteria around her conjunctiva” ...

The patient had been wearing monthly disposable contact lenses for the past 35 years but did not attend regular optometrist appointments.

Ms Morjaria said the patient did not report any symptoms linked to the missing lenses in her pre-operative assessment.

“She was quite shocked. When she was seen two weeks after I removed the lenses she said her eyes felt a lot more comfortable. She thought her previous discomfort was just part of old age and dry eye” ...

The case, which occurred in November last year, is reported in The BMJ.

Ms Morjaria told OT that the decision was made to publish the case because the clinicians involved had previously not believed it was possible to retain so many contact lenses without being symptomatic. ...
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FULL STORY (With Photo): https://www.aop.org.uk/ot/science-a...finds-27-missing-contact-lenses-in-womans-eye

PUBLISHED BMJ REPORT:
Retained contact lenses
Rupal Morjaria, Richard Crombie, Amit Patel
BMJ 2017; 358
doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.j2783 (Published 05 July 2017)
SOURCE: https://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j2783.full
(Subscription / registration required for access)
 
I recall having a bit of an afternoon snoozette and when I woke up I gave my eyes a good old rub……you know how guys do when they wake up…we either rub our eyeballs or scratch our lower balls….sometimes both at the same time if we’re being particularly dexterous….Anyhow, on this occasion I not only managed to fold up one of my contact lenses but also pushed the bugger around the back of my eye! It took about 30 minutes of manipulating my increasingly reddening eyeball before I managed to see the faintest sliver of contact lens visible that I just about shifted with my pinkie finger…..any longer and I would have been checking into A&E to have a professional have a go at it………still hasn’t stopped me from rubbing my eyeballs though!
 
Sgt Girth said:
I recall having a bit of an afternoon snoozette and when I woke up I gave my eyes a good old rub……you know how guys do when they wake up…we either rub our eyeballs or scratch our lower balls….sometimes both at the same time if we’re being particularly dexterous….Anyhow, on this occasion I not only managed to fold up one of my contact lenses but also pushed the bugger around the back of my eye! It took about 30 minutes of manipulating my increasingly reddening eyeball before I managed to see the faintest sliver of contact lens visible that I just about shifted with my pinkie finger…..any longer and I would have been checking into A&E to have a professional have a go at it………still hasn’t stopped me from rubbing my eyeballs though!
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I have heard about them moving and being difficult to get out again - this is one of the things that freaks me out about them.

I am still hoping to give them a try though. I would like the option to not wear glasses frames sometimes. During the summer I was finding my glasses were rubbing my nose/breaking the skin and that made me wonder whether trying contacts would be a good idea. I ended up having to put tiny plasters on my nose to protect the skin for a while until it healed up.

But the 27 lenses stuck in the eye thing is really horrible. How can you keep putting more in and just thinking they have fallen out or something? I am assuming that is what these people have thought to themselves when they couldn't find them on their eyes.

Surely you might think it had happened on one occasion, but if it kept happening, you might go and get your eyes checked out at the hospital. I would be worrying about the lenses being stuck somewhere they shouldn't be and what harm they might be doing.
 
I’ve also clawed at my cornea trying to remove a non existent lens……only once……and alcohol was involved……it won’t happen again…….it isn’t a fun thing to do!
 
Cringe to all of your lens stories. I had a teacher in public school who monitored our lunch. She had lenses and would sit, throughout our lunch, playing with them in her eyeballs:omg:. I tried so hard not to glance at her when I was eating.
 
brownmane said:
Cringe to all of your lens stories. I had a teacher in public school who monitored our lunch. She had lenses and would sit, throughout our lunch, playing with them in her eyeballs:omg:. I tried so hard not to glance at her when I was eating.
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Playing in what way? There's not a lot you can do with them - slide them off your iris and slide them back on.
 
EnolaGaia said:
I found the earlier story. A total of 27 forgotten contacts were removed from a British woman's eye in November 2016
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Thanks for that - I was starting to question my own memory, being certain that I heard similar before.
Sgt Girth said:
or scratch our lower balls
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Hang on a moment................do other guys have more than one set of balls then, a 'higher' and a 'lower' set?
I've only got the one set of knackers! I'm not sure whether they would be classed as either higher or lower though - they're in front, where my legs meet my waist.
Sgt Girth said:
trying to remove a non existent lens
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Yep I've done that before, but for me it was resolved by realising that my eyesight is bad enough that without my lenses in I have difficulty seeing anything more than a few feet away clearly.
 
Ogdred Weary said:
Playing in what way? There's not a lot you can do with them - slide them off your iris and slide them back on.
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Umm, yes. Whatever she was doing with them, she would do this throughout the whole lunch time. She would have her finger stuck in her eye and move the lens around. This was in a half hour timeframe.:puke2:
 
I was advised by my optician that if I feel that some sort of 'debris' (eg an eyelash or tiny particle of something blown on the breeze) has managed to get between my lens and my eyeball, the way to sort it out is to gently slide the lens over onto the sclera, and then look around in a circular motion, which should be enough to dislodge the foreign object, and then return the lens to it's correct place.
I'm not sure it is something I would spend my entire lunchtime doing though.
 
Trevp666 said:
I was advised by my optician that if I feel that some sort of 'debris' (eg an eyelash or tiny particle of something blown on the breeze) has managed to get between my lens and my eyeball, the way to sort it out is to gently slide the lens over onto the sclera, and then look around in a circular motion, which should be enough to dislodge the foreign object, and then return the lens to it's correct place.
I'm not sure it is something I would spend my entire lunchtime doing though.
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I have no problem with someone adjusting a lens, but she played with hers. Maybe they were ill fitting, but talk to your eye doctor, don't continually play with them. I can imagine that this would damage your eyes eventually
 
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