Turns out our parents were right; it really is all fun and games until someone loses an eye.
Chad Groeschen is a 39-year-old man from Cincinnati and until about a month ago, he had two functioning eyeballs that suffered from just a common dose of distortion. So he wore contact lenses.
Like most people, he probably wasn’t thrilled about the exercise of constantly taking them out and putting them in and taking them out and putting them in. Fortunately Groeschen had a pair of “extended wear” contacts. One night he went to sleep and he left them in.
According to Buzzfeed News, shortly after this night, he arrived at work with itchy eyes. The following morning, he had self-diagnosed symptoms of a sinus infection. The day after that, Groeschen woke up in excruciating pain, almost no vision in his left eye, and after being examined by a specialist, the understanding that he was infected with pseudomonas bacteria.
An image from Groeschen’s Facebook page.
Now Chad is completely blind in his one eye and doctors have informed him that he will probably need a cornea transplant to regain vision.
The problem is, he likely won’t be the last one to suffer such a fate; according to a study released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Almost all of the 41 million estimated contact lens wearers…may be engaging in at least one behavior known to increase their risk of eye infections…”
The three most common risky moves, in order of frequency, are keeping contact lens cases for too long, adding new solution to remaining solution instead of refreshing the entire container, and of course – committed by over 50% of people with contacts – leaving the lenses in when they go to sleep.
So let this be a warning to you young professionals out there with an aesthetic intolerance for glasses and a procedural intolerance for contacts; don’t stare at the sun, never look a gift horse in the mouth, and never ever wear your contacts to bed.
Unless, of course, you’re planning to be a pirate for Halloween.
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