Katerina Kurteeva is an eye doctor.
Kurteeva couldn't see anything in the initial exam of the patient.
The story of Kurteeva was told to Medlicott.
The essay is based on a conversation with a doctor. It has been edited to make it clearer.
It had been a busy Monday at the clinic with eye emergencies that came up over the weekend. At the end of the day, a patient in her 70s who wore daily contact lens came in and said she couldn't get out of her eye.
The woman hadn't been to the office in two years because she had skipped appointments. It was the pain that bothered her the most.
It could be a piece of broken contact lens, a scratch on the eye, an eyelash, or something else. I wouldn't know for certain until I did the exam.
I used a yellow stain and an esthetic to identify scratches. I pulled on the lower and upper lid to see if there was anything in the upper or lower fornix after I couldn't see anything on the cornea. Things sometimes get stuck in the deep corners of the eye.
I didn't see a lot, just a small amount of mucus, which could be a natural response to irritation. I wasn't sure what to think.
I used an eyelid speculum to keep the upper and lower lid open at the same time, so I could use my hands to investigate.
The edges of a couple of contacts were visible when I asked her to look down. I asked my assistant to record the removal so I could see more later.
When I asked the patient to look down again, I could see a big blob of contact lens stuck to her eye. It looked like a third eye. I used a Q-tip to peel the lens apart one by one. They came out in a chain. I thought this could be my Guinness Book of World Records moment.
I'd never seen anything like it before.
The patient asked if I was certain about the number I was counting.
We took a few more from the corners, flushed her eye out with sterile water, and sent her home with anti- inflammatory drops. She said she was feeling better.
I put the contacts on the tissue and separated them with a pair of surgical tools. The natural color of a contact lens is light blue, but the stain I put in her eyes made some of them yellow.
I posted the video of the exam and it went crazy. The video was being used by Optometrists from South America, Mexico, and Europe to teach people how to take care of their contact lens. These are light and should not be used for more than a day.
The patient was very lucky, she could have lost her sight, scratched her eye, or gotten an illness. I begged her not to wear contact lens again, but she went straight back to them. I saw her a month after the exam and she was doing well and feeling more comfortable.
She had been wearing contact lens for 30 years, so it's possible she forgot to remove them. She wouldn't have felt it if she wore 23 contact lenses. She could have been older. Older people's eyelid fornix, the least sensitive space, is much deeper, and the contact lens just sat there for a while not bothering her.
I think I'm lucky to have captured this on video to remind people to remove their contact lens. It could have gone bad very quickly.
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