Nick Humphreys, 29, residing in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, had never imagined that contact lenses would cost him his right eye vision.
Like any normal human being, he would get up, head to the gym wearing his contacts, come back home, shower with contacts on and head to his office.
Nick loves to play football and trains to stay fit for the same. He exclaimed that wearing glasses would hinder his training so he started wearing contact lenses all the time for five days a week.
In January 2018, his eye developed a painful scratch which was temporarily soothed by a few eye drops and low brightness on his gadgets. When the pain persisted, he visited an optician and was suggested some tests suspecting infection.
The test results came positive for Acanthamoeba keratitis. It is an infection caused by parasites found in water.
When a person wears contacts, they cause small cuts in the eye that are penetrable for small organisms. In Nick’s case, showering with lenses was the reason.
The optician prescribed Nick disinfecting eye drops which helped him for 3 weeks but in March 2018, he completely went blind in the right eye.
He was then prescribed stronger eye drops to be put every hour in his eye, even in the night. Due to sleeplessness, he had to stop working. As a result, he got homebound and couldn’t even play football.
When his condition didn’t improve, he underwent two surgeries in July 2018 and September 2018 which cured the infection although his vision did not restore.
Nick, now, works with the charity Fight for Sight. He raises awareness about the side effects of wearing contacts while swimming and showering. He is also awaiting a corneal transplant.
According to a research by Moorfield’s Eye Hospital, the cases of AK infection have increased three times in the last eight years in the UK. These unhygienic practices should be put to a stop otherwise Nick’s story would become increasingly common.
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