A wildly busy, sunny day earlier this summer, and after a few weeks of traveling and living out of a suitcase, I still hadn’t fully unpacked.
That morning, I pulled a contact lens case out of my sponge pouch, took out each lens (the reusable kind, which I change every two weeks), and popped them into each eye as casually as I had done since I first got contact lenses at age 16.
No cleaning, no mirror. I may not have even washed my hands.
For those of us who use contact lenses, it’s a familiar scene. But it’s also the beginning of a cautionary tale, as my obvious carelessness almost cost me my sight…
The first sign of trouble came later that day when my eyes started to itch. Cursing the pollen count, I took an antihistamine pill and threw in some eye drops from a bottle that rolls around the bottom of my purse.
It didn’t help – by the time I cycled home at 5pm there was a nimbus glow around everything and no amount of blinking could clear my vision. I couldn’t wait to get the lenses out and get back to my familiar specs.
Once home, I pulled the plastic discs off my eyeballs, blinked in relief and froze in horror. The vagueness was still there.
I told myself not to panic and grabbed a bottle of saline solution that I keep next to my desk and closed both eyes repeatedly. It didn’t provide the usual relief, but instead it felt like I was rinsing my eyeballs with sulfuric acid – and it turned out to be the worst thing I could have done.
Susannah Jowitt has happily worn reusable contact lenses since she was 16 – often without cleaning them or washing her hands
But after this usual routine, her eyes started to itch and her vision became blurry. Susannah then flushed her eyes with saline solution, which, instead of bringing relief, left her functionally blind
Within seconds it was as if the room was filled with thick smoke. And suddenly I couldn’t see anything anymore, no vague shapes, not even color. My world had become a binary world of only dark and light.
Less than twelve hours after that first itchy blink, I was functionally blind.
For a moment I wondered if I could sleep it off, but when a friend passed by and saw me, she immediately took me to Moorfields Eye Hospital in London.
As I progressed through the various triage stages of their emergency room, each time a self-harming blow flashed into my eyes, and each brightly lit hospital room another flamethrower attack on my vision, I berated myself.
I had clearly stored my lenses in a case that had been in my sponge bag for a while. I hadn’t cleaned them with fresh solution or washed my hands. And the eye drops and saline had both been left open for much longer than the designated month. After forty years of steady lens use, I lost my sight within half a day due to my own fatal neglect.
“You have a double corneal infection,” an ophthalmologist at Moorfields said matter-of-factly. “Both corneas are covered in so many ulcers that I’m glad we caught it when we did. Ironically, the eye drops you used actually ‘fed’ the infection, causing it to accelerate.”
I couldn’t see him clearly, but his voice took on a stern tone. “If your friend had not brought you this evening, the sores would have covered your eye too extensively and you might have lost your sight.”
Later I discovered that certain types of bacteria are so aggressive that they can break down corneal tissue in one day.
The fear of what I had almost done to myself washed over me.
“Dirty water or non-viable contact lens solution are likely the culprits,” he continued. ‘Have you ever showered or gone swimming with lenses in?’
“Almost every shower and every swim for the past forty years,” I replied. “I’m far too nearsighted to swim without it.”
He tutted softly. “None of our water is sterile. Microbes can get stuck between your lens and the surface of your eye and then work their way in and cause ulcers on the cornea.”
Hostile microbes burrowing into my eyeball? I was now on the set of a horror movie.
I was given antibiotic eye drops, which had to be instilled into both eyes every hour, day and night. My alarm was set every 59 minutes for the first 48 hours, and then every hour during the day for two weeks.
I didn’t mind the tyranny of this timetable because every drop felt like healing balm from the gods. Miraculously, I was able to see within minutes of taking the first one. Blurry at first, my eyeballs still red and weeping, still cringing in bright light, but within a day or two I felt almost fine.
A doctor explained that she had a double corneal infection, depicted with orange dye around her eyes, after the initial testing phase in the emergency room.
But after taking antibiotic drops, her vision began to clear and her eyes returned to normal within a few days
I was allowed to stop wearing my biweekly contact lenses for six weeks, and only then, after a series of tests, but with the vanity gone, did I wear my glasses with relief.
In this brightest summer, my eyes need shade more than ever, but I put aside my beloved sunglasses and bought a pair of clip-on sunglasses. “It looks powerful,” my husband assured me. ‘A bit Gary Oldman as Count Dracula.’
Neha Shah, the optometrist at my Specsavers branch, later carried out a series of tests and told me I had been lucky.
‘There is no scarring on your corneas, so you can wear your reusable lenses again – up to 14 hours a day and only six days a week.’
She added: ‘Change the solution daily and rinse and rub each lens in the solution for at least 30 seconds before use.’
Ouch. Thirty seconds is longer than I brush my teeth and it’s 32.
My corneas may not be scarred, but mentally I am. Corneal infections are uncommon but not rare.
So now I’m super vigilant. I put in my lenses after showering and strictly adhere to the 30-day limit for all lenses. I boil and air dry my socket biweekly, wash and dry my hands as soon as I look at my eyes.
Daily lenses would remove some of these hurdles, but because they cost double the price of reusable lenses, they are too expensive for me, so I’ll just have to be more careful.
Above all, I give my eyes the respect they deserve. I now know that the eyes are having a hard time.
