Rupal Morjaria, ophthalmologist at Solihull Hospital, near the city of Birmingham in England still cannot believe his eyes. The story she told last July 5 to Optometry Today magazine is so out of the ordinary that she continues to be amazed.
Back to the facts. Last November, the team of ophthalmic surgeons led by Rupal Morjaria, intervened on a 67-year-old patient for a trivial operation of the cataract. But this routine operation takes a completely unusual turn when the surgeons discover a cluster of contact lenses agglutinated on one eye of the sixty-year-old. The “bluish mass” contained exactly 27 lenses stuck together by mucus (viscous secretion produced by the mucous membranes playing a protective role).
Dry eye
“None of us had seen anything like this before. It was such a big lump. All the lenses were stuck together. We were amazed that the patient hadn’t felt it, because she had must have caused a lot of irritation as long as it was in place, “recalls the person responsible for this discovery, Rupal Morjaria, during the interview with Optometry Today.
The report published in BMJ magazine specifies that the patient did not seem to suffer so much from this multiple lens wear. She had been wearing these corrections for 35 years but hardly ever went to her ophthalmologist. Even more surprisingly, before coming for this cataract operation, she had no symptoms. Nothing was abnormal, the patient thought, except a dry eye, which she believed to be related to her age.
Two weeks after these foreign bodies were removed from her eye, the woman felt much better. This extremely rare case is an opportunity for doctors to stress the importance of having impeccable hygiene in contact lens wearers and to consult an ophthalmologist at least once a year. “Contact lenses are used all the time, but if the follow-up is not appropriate, we see people getting eye infectionssevere, which can even cause them to lose their sight, “warns Rupal Morjaria.
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