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This nightmare is enough to make anyone wince.
A British woman may never see out of her right eye again after a devastating parasite burrowed into her cornea, leaving doctors with no choice but to sew her lid shut in a desperate attempt to save her sight.
Now, Emma Marsden is opening up about the innocent mistake that triggered the horrifying ordeal, hoping her story can help others avoid the same fate.
It all started in February, when Marsden took a tumble while cleaning out horse stables, landing headfirst in a wheelbarrow filled with dirt and water.
Thinking nothing of it, the 47-year-old cleaned herself off, washing away the dirt and mud from her hands and face — but she didn’t remove her contact lenses until later that evening.
That seemingly harmless decision would trigger a devastating chain of events.
Four days after her fall, Marsden’s right eye began stinging. The pain quickly escalated, becoming “excruciating,” as her vision started to fade.
After initial tests came back clear, doctors diagnosed her with an ulcer and sent her home with prescription eye drops.
But over the following days, the pain became unbearable — and the former personal trainer from Lancashire eventually lost all vision in her right eye.
“My eye was excruciatingly painful and red,” she said, according to a report by The Sun. “Any time light hit my eye the pain was so severe I couldn’t open my eyes.”
It wasn’t until a follow-up appointment in March that doctors discovered the real culprit: acanthamoeba keratitis, a rare but potentially vision-threatening infection.
The condition occurs when a microscopic organism called Acanthamoeba invades the cornea, the clear, dome-shaped outer layer at the front of the eye.
“It eats through your eye and cornea and all your nerves,” Marsden said. “The speed it ate at, the doctors couldn’t believe it.”
Doctors told Marsden she likely picked up the infection when she washed her face with her contact lenses still in, as Acanthamoeba can be found in tap water. The organism is also present in lakes, oceans, rivers, swimming pools, hot tubs, soil and dust.
While anyone can develop acanthamoeba keratitis, the vast majority of cases occur among contact lens wearers. The infection is rare, with an estimated 1,500 cases in the US each year, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
“I’ve had three kids and giving birth is a dream compared to this pain,” she said. “I was in a dark room for three-and-a-half weeks and I couldn’t go outside or do anything.”
After doctors discovered the parasite had perforated her cornea — creating a hole in the surface of her eye — they were forced to sew her eyelid shut in a desperate attempt to help the area heal.
Marsden has since been told she will eventually need a corneal transplant, but doctors must wait several years because of the infection.
“If I’m still two years down the line and have no life and can’t do anything, I will quite happily have my eye taken out,” she said. “It’s a bad situation, but I’m still here. I can walk, I can see with one eye and I can still hear. It will get better over time.”
Marsden is now being monitored at the hospital weekly and must take six doses of eye drops every two hours.
She is also urging other contact lens users to follow proper hygiene practices to avoid suffering a similar fate.
“I still wear my contact lenses in my left eye because it isn’t the contact lens that did this, but it was the wearer [me] not having the knowledge of how to look after them properly and what not to do,” Marsden said.
In the US, about 45 million people wear contact lenses. When used correctly, experts say they can be a safe and effective alternative to glasses.
But improper handling and poor hygiene can increase the risk of potentially serious complications, including acanthamoeba keratitis, corneal ulcers and conjunctivitis.
Many of these infections occur when harmful microbes get into the eye — often due to improper cleaning, storing lenses incorrectly, using expired lenses or solutions, or exposing contacts to water.
Sleeping in contacts can also raise the risk. In fact, people who sleep in their lenses are six to eight times more likely to develop an eye infection, according to the CDC.
“You’ve got to be careful with your eyes,” Marsden said. “Until you’ve been through this or know someone, you are quite blasé.”
