Oct. 19, 2022 — A California ophthalmologist is urging people to be more vigilant when wearing contact lenses after removing 23 contact lenses from a patient’s eye.
In a video posted on Instagram, ophthalmologist Katerina Kurteeva, MD, is shown removing contact lenses from a woman’s eye.
“Don’t sleep with your contact lenses on!” she warned.
“They were basically stuck together after sitting under the eyelid for a month,” Kurteeva said in the post.
The patient is well and wishes to continue wearing contact lenses, the doctor told the Los Angeles affiliate ABC Newsnoting that the patient did not know how she could have forgotten to remove her lenses.
About 45 million Americans wear contact lenses, According to the CDC. The use of contact lenses increases the risk of infections such as microbial keratitis. In severe cases, microbial keratitis can lead to blindness or require a corneal transplant.
Kurteeva told Los Angeles TV that the cornea becomes desensitized after years of wearing contact lenses.
“It’s basically a protective feature because otherwise you’d be really bothered with everyday contact lens wear. After all, it’s a foreign body in your eye,” she said. “So when the cornea loses sensitivity, it’s kind of an adjustment, but at the same time you don’t feel as clearly that something is really wrong.”
Kurteeva encouraged people who wear contact lenses to follow safety practices such as safe handling and storage procedures.
Learn more about contact lens safety from the FDA.
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