The 23-year-old said she was in the ‘worst pain she’d ever felt’.
Reasons I’m too squeamish for contacts #407
Just the idea of touching my eye with my finger… I realize there’s a contact lens between them, but that doesn’t really change the ickiness of the idea to me.
You eventually get used to it
One time I tried for 5 minutes to get my contact lens out, getting desperate enough to scratch from the white to the iris with my fingernail. I thought I was scratching the contact lens until I felt something weird in the side of my eye.
The fucking thing slid behind my eye at some point.
So I scratched my literal fucking eyeball with very little pain.
My vision was blurry, but I could see only one contact lens was removed in the container. I concluded that it must still be in there and that the bad vision was just my mind playing tricks on me.
Point is, you can get pretty comfortable touching your eyeball.
Did the contacts really make a difference here or is swimming in affected waters the main hazard?
My understanding is that acanthamoeba are basically everywhere, and the contacts being worn when swimming or showering are actually one of the main factors in acanthamoeba infection. They normally eat bacteria but they are opportunistic parasites, and I guess the contact gives them the opportunity.
So does the acanthamoeba get stuck behind the contact and can’t get washed away by tears? Or do the contacts cause small abrasions that serve as an entry point? What role is the contact lens playing?
I’m only a student in the field so NotADoctor™ but under normal conditions your tear film layer and blinking keep other liquids out of your eyes. When wearing contacts in water or when cleaning them with tapwater, there is a small amount of the fluid that gets trapped against the eye. If that fluid is fresh water contaminated with acanthamoeba, it provides ample opportunity and time for the acanthamoeba to break through the layer and the contact lens prevents it from being blinked away.
Really? Can’t be a barrista anymore because you can only see from one eye? I’ve wore a patch before. It isn’t much of a hindrance, really.
Big issue I’d have is that I really wouldn’t want to drive with only one eye. Loss of depth perception and visual field would be a significant concern.
Literally thousands do it, though. The depth perception thing is a bit overblown, really. You aren’t losing that much depth perception.
Also, the article states her reasons for having to quit, and driving there isn’t one of them.
