A teenager was forced to stay awake for one week to prevent a worm-like parasite to burrow further in her eyeball. This was a decision made by her doctors to halt the worm from eating her cornea and making her blind.
Jessica Greaney, 18, believed she only had an eye infection but after a week, her eye turned red and was so inflamed it was already similar to the size of a golf ball. She was then left almost blind when the said parasite burrowed into her eye and began eating her cornea from inside out, Mail Online reports.
When she was admitted, the doctors found out that the condition is called Acanthamoeba Keratitis. What the doctors feared the most was that the parasite would find its way to her spinal cord, which can be fatal.
The student from the Nottingham University was forced avoid sleeping as nurses had to administer eye drops every ten minutes to kill the parasite. Apparently, she got the parasite when her contact lens was washed with tap water.
"It was not dissimilar from Chinese water torture," Jessica recalled as reported by the student website The Tab as reported by Huffington Post. "After the fourth day, not only was I going insane and crying every five minutes, nothing was changing. This parasite was still eating my eye and even worse, my immune system was shutting down because of my lack of sleep," she added.
Health officials are warning the public to take good care of contact lenses by washing them with clean eye solutions only. Tap water is often times contaminated. Also, they are recommending to prevent wearing contact lenses in a hot tub and swimming or showering while wearing them.
