UK eye surgeon Rupal Morjaria was poised to operate on a 67-year-old patient when he discovered a "blueish mass" that turned out to be 17 old, lost contact lenses that had fused together; he then recovered 10 more loose, floating lenses from her eye.
The patient had assumed that her discomfort was "part of old age and dry eye."
She'd been wearing disposable lenses for 35 years but did not attend regular eye-doctor appointments.
"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," Ms Morjaria elaborated.
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," Ms Morjaria
UK SURGEON FINDS 27 MISSING CONTACT LENSES IN WOMAN'S EYE
[Selina Powell/Optometry Today]
(via Reddit)
(Image: KimonBerlin, CC-BY-SA)
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