I feel asleep with contact lenses in and a flesh-eating bug ate my EYE

A young man in Florida fears he has lost vision in one eye after falling asleep in his contact lenses.

Michael Krumholz, 21, of Lake Worth, near Miami, was in his final year of sports administration and worked part-time at a children’s daycare last year.

But after taking a 40-minute nap while wearing her daily contact lenses, she says she developed a flesh-eating bacterial infection, called acanthamoeba (AK) keratitis, in her left eye.

The infection left the eye swollen, red and eaten away much of the cornea after it took doctors a month to diagnose the bacteria.

He can no longer see out of his left eye, except for ‘black and gray’ flashes which he likens to static on a television.

Doctors say you may only be able to recover 10 percent of your vision after a corneal transplant, but I’d take one percent.

Michael Krumholz, 21, of Lake Worth, near Miami, was in college and had a part-time job with children last year when he was diagnosed with an eye infection. He says that he was caused by sleeping while wearing his contact lenses.

QA is a rare bacterial infection that eats away at the surface of the eye. If not treated promptly, it can lead to vision loss.

The infection forced the 21-year-old to quit his job and stop doing his hobbies, including socializing with friends, playing baseball and working out at the gym.

He told DailyMail.com: ‘I’m 21 and I’ve been trying to find a sports management job in the industry but it seems impossible to do.

‘Nowadays there is no work, there is no social life, really, social networks help you get through the day.’

He has also developed photosensitivity in both eyes, which means he cannot be in direct sunlight without pain and must submerge himself in the darkness of his house.

Mr. Krumholz had been wearing Acuvue Oasys daily contact lenses for two to three years prior to his infection. Vision in his right eye is unaffected.

Acanthamoeba keratitis is a rare bacterial infection. About 80 percent of cases are in contact lens wearers, at a rate of one to two cases per million people each year.

The bacteria that cause the infection are very common and are found in lakes, streams, oceans, and soil. They can also get into tap water, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning units.

They are usually harmless. But in cases where they enter the eyes through micro-tears and scratches, they can trigger an infection.

The infection can take several days or weeks to trigger symptoms after it starts, says the Mayo Clinic.

Everyone who wears contact lenses is at increased risk, experts say.

But people who wear their contact lenses at night are at even greater risk because they can cause abrasions to the surface of the eye while someone is sleeping, making it easier for an infection to start.

They also deprive the cornea of ​​oxygen at night (this is prevented during the day by blinking), which can reduce its ability to fight off a bacterial infection.

Contact lens companies tell users not to wear their lenses at night to reduce risk. They also tell wearers to wash their hands when putting on or taking off lenses and to wear backup glasses.

After taking a nap on Dec. 19, Krumholz said her eyes began to feel uncomfortable.

‘My contacts felt really irritated like they were floating in my eye [after I woke up from the nap]’, he told the British newspaper The daily star.

‘So I took them out and there was nothing wrong. The next morning I woke up, went to play baseball, and had to take my contacts out like immediately.

‘I told my parents: ‘I have to go to the ophthalmologist, something is not right.’

‘I thought he had a pink eye or something and he [the doctor] he took a picture of the back of my eye after the dilation, and it was like something wasn’t right.’

Doctors initially diagnosed Mr. Krumholz with the herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), which people can contract by touching a cold sore and then their eyes.

But despite being treated with antibiotics, every day the inflammation in his eye got worse and worse. Doctors then tried him on steroids, but the swelling in his eye got worse.

Five ophthalmologists and two cornea specialists finally took a scraping from his eye on January 21 that tested positive for AK.

Doctors initially diagnosed Mr. Krumholz with the herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), which people can contract by touching a cold sore and then their eyes.

The doctors also tried steroids on his eyes, but the situation got worse.

He was in his last year of university studying sports management when the infection occurred.

Speaking about the pain the infection caused, he said: ‘I couldn’t explain pain like this in my life.

It’s like a constant shock, it’s a constant pain. I’m pretty proud of my pain tolerance, but I’ve been screaming in pain.

He added: ‘The first two weeks I was diagnosed with this, there is no pain like this at all. I wish I was exaggerating.

After being diagnosed at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, he underwent conjunctival flap surgery.

In this procedure, surgeons cut out the “whites” of the patient’s eyes and place them over their pupil to help fight the parasite. It is left on for a period of time to help the cornea heal.

Mr. Krumholz also received photodynamic therapy, usually reserved for cancer patients, which uses light energy and a drug to kill cancerous and precancerous cells. It can also be used to kill bacteria in QA infections.

Doctors have suggested that he could now receive a corneal transplant to restore some of his vision. He was scheduled to receive one last week, but when he got to the doctors they told him that the infection was still in his eye, a month later, and that he would not be able to receive the transplant.

He told DailyMail.com: ‘If I get a corneal transplant after this is all over, I might get even 10 per cent of my vision back, but it would take just one per cent.

‘The most painful thing about this is all the waiting.

I am on so many medications and eye drops, and have been receiving treatment for this since January 21, a month or so ago.

‘[But] the infection is still ongoing. They did a biopsy and it stopped growing, and they say it might be slowing down, but it’s not completely gone.”

When he spoke to the newspaper, he appeared wearing sunglasses and in an almost completely dark room.

Patients who have received photodynamic therapy are told to avoid sunlight for at least 40 hours after treatment. This is because the skin is still sensitive to light and any further exposure can cause further damage or burns.

Before infection. Mr. Krumholz had been wearing contact lenses for seven years with no problems.

But occasionally he suffered from conjunctivitis, also known as conjunctivitis, an inflammation of the transparent membrane that lines the eyeball caused by a bacterial infection or allergies.

People who wear contact lenses are at higher risk of infection.

Mr Krumholz added: “There are a lot of people who wear contacts right now who have said, ‘hey, I just fell asleep in my contacts, should I go to the doctor?'”

“I used to sleep with my contacts on with no issues, but I’m trying to get the word out that there are issues with that.

‘It’s not good now.’

Mr. Krumholz launched an online fundraiser to spread the word about the risks of wearing contact lenses while you sleep.

Posted on GoFundMe, it has so far raised $3,000 of the $10,000 projected.