An 18-year-old student from the University of Nottingham, whose eye was infected by a parasite known as Acanthamoeba keratitis was forced to stay awake for a week to stop the parasite from burrowing into her eyeball.
Jessica Greaney, who has been wearing a contact lens for two years, thought she was suffering from an eye infection. However, she decided to have her eye checked when it turned red and bulged to the size of a golf ball.
“By the end of the week, my eye was bulging, and it looked like a huge red golf ball. It was swollen, and extremely painful, and they admitted me into hospital,” Jessica told The Telegraph.
At the hospital, doctors told Jessica that a parasite called Acanthamoeba keratitis was burrowing into her cornea. If left untreated, the parasite may cause vision problems, paralysis, or even death.
To prevent the parasite from eating away her cornea, Jessica had to undergo an intensive treatment. Every ten minutes, doctors had to apply eyedrops to treat the parasite. The procedure left her unable to sleep for 7 days.
In an interview with the student newspaper The Tab, Jessica recounted her difficult experience.
“They had to keep me awake for a week. It was torture – she had to hold my eye open and squirt a few droplets in.”
“Even if I had managed to nod off, I could only get a couple of minutes’ sleep before I was woken again. This parasite was still eating my eye and even worse, my immune system was shutting down because of my lack of sleep,” she said.
The doctors, who initially misdiagnosed Jessica of ulcer, discovered the parasite after scraping off a layer of her eye with scalpel.
Apparently, Jessica’s contact lens placed near a sink was contaminated with tap water giving the parasite an opportunity to thrive in the area between her eyes.
“Apparently, all water has tonnes of different types of bacteria and the Acanthamoeba just happens to be one of them, “ Jessica explained.
