A Texas mother has gone blind in one eye after making a grave error with her contact lenses.
Last year, Rachel Prochnow, an Austin, Texas-based lifestyle writer, did something she’d done countless times before: she showered without taking the lenses out.
What started with some light irritation in her right eye quickly deteriorated.
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‘The pain makes giving birth look like a walk in the freaking park. [It] was absolutely unreal.’
Within two weeks Ms Prochnow, who was 34 weeks pregnant at the time, had gone completely blind on that side.
Doctors told her that a parasite found in water had gotten into her eye, likely while she was showering, and burrowed into the delicate tissue, damaging it.
She had always been careful about taking care of her eyes, having worn contacts since she was 12. She always took them out at night, cleaned them well and threw away her contact lens cases regularly – ensuring everything was sterile.
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But she was never knew that showering, swimming or hot tubbing in her contact lenses could leave her vulnerable to infection.
‘I thought I was doing everything right. I wasn’t,’ she said.
Doctors eventually diagnosed her with acanthamoeba keratitis.
