If you frequently fall asleep while wearing your contact lenses, you might want to be a little more cautious. In a frightening event, a man in Florida who was wearing contact lenses when he went to sleep lost eyesight in one of his eyes. One eye's vision was lost as a result of a severe infection caused by a rare flesh-eating bacteria that formed into Mike Krumholz's eyes, according to a report by Daily Star.
Mike Krumholz, age 21, had gone down taking a nap wearing his contact lenses. After a long day at work, Krumholz wanted to take sleep, but he didn't remember to take out his contacts. He has worn contact lenses for almost seven years and is accustomed to suffering eye infections or "pink eye" if he occasionally forgets to take them out. The situation worsened this time, and Krumholz was identified as having acanthamoebic keratitis in his right eye.
Doctors claim that Krumholz had acanthamoeba keratitis, a rare form of flesh-eating parasitic infection that enters the eyes and begins to eat away at the tissue, after sleeping with his contact lenses on. Due to the damage to his right eye, he was unable to work, study, or otherwise lead a regular life for more than 50 days.
Krumholz revealed, "When I woke up, I thought I might have had pink eye or really awful allergies. I was misdiagnosed with HSV1 in my eye, but after seeing five different ophthalmologists and two cornea experts, I was found to have acanthamoeba keratitis, a very unusual parasite."
According to Krumholz, he has only undergone one procedure known as PDT relocation of the conjunctival flap, and it has left him with "absolutely no vision" in one eye. It took more than a month and numerous trips to five different ophthalmologists, two cornea specialists, and even a false-positive HSV1 (Herpes simplex virus) diagnosis in his eye before it was determined that he actually had the flesh-eating parasite.
Since then, Krumholz has had one procedure termed PDT (photodynamic therapy), which involves moving the conjunctival flap. Also, he has urged anyone who wear contact lenses to refrain from sleeping or taking showers while they are in them.
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