This Girl's Contacts Could Have Killed Her

Let me begin by saying that I am sorry for this. So, so sorry. But a parasite almost ate the eyeball of a woman in the UK because she didn't take proper care of her contacts. Excuse me while I quietly thank all listening deities that I have only ever worn glasses and never used contacts. For those of you who can't say the same, I reiterate that I am so, so sorry.

Jessice Greaney, an 18 year old at the University of Nottingham in England, initially thought she had an eye infection. However, after her eye continued to get worse, finally swelling up to the size of a golf ball, she went to the hospital. After running tests, the doctors determined that a worm-like parasite, Acanthamoeba Keratitis, had burrowed into her eyeball and was eating it from the inside out.

Let me repeat that just in case it wasn't already going to haunt your nightmares: A worm-like parasite burrowed into her eye and started eating it.

Greaney was at risk for blindness, and potentially even death if the parasite were to eat its way through the eye and into the spinal column. In order to treat the infection, Greaney has to administer drops every 10 minutes for a week, meaning she had to stay awake for seven straight days, which has its own severe consequences. But I guess it's better than having a worm eat your eyeball.

The worst part, though, is that this whole worm-eating-her-eyeball thing happened because of something very simple that contact wearers do all the time. Greaney simply left her contacts in a glass of solution on the sink in her dorm. A drop of contaminated water splashed onto the contacts, allowing an amoeba to wind up in the space between the contact lens and her eye. Which then, in case you missed it the first two times, allowed a worm-like parasite to burrow into her eye and start eating it.

And all because of something people with contacts do all the time.

But I do not share this story with you to terrify you (though you probably should be terrified, because yikes). I'm telling you all this to make sure you take care of your contacts from now on. Because I don't want any of you to die or go blind because a worm ate your eyeball. And I know you don't want that either.

You can also see pictures of this nightmarish ordeal here. If you can bear it.

Images: Giphy (3)