
Blinded after applying contact lenses with wet hands - sohkamyung
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-39568781
======
piptastic
I had acanthamoeba in 2001.

You pretty much have to have a corneal abrasion (scratch) before introducing
the eye to water. It's not something you're going to get randomly from taking
a shower or swimming. However, wearing contacts regularly for the last twenty
years, I tend to get an abrasion once every two years or so. I'm extra careful
during these times..

In 2001, there were about 7 cases in the US per year. It took me 6 months of
excruciating pain and three eye doctors just to diagnose it. Luckily the third
doctor really knew what he was doing. He diagnosed it in about 2-3 visits,
snuck me some non-FDA approved drops with chlorine in them, and got rid of the
infection.

I had to do a corneal transplant and still can't see very well out of it -
cloudy with an astigmatism too large to correct.

Here's a good resource:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3972779/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3972779/)

~~~
bonafidehan
How can you tell that you have a corneal abrasion?

~~~
lostlogin
It's can be quite unpleasant. The test for it is very straight forward - eye
drops and someone looks into your eye. Wear goggles when grinding steel and
even if you do, take care when washing your face afterwards. Steel stuck in
your cornea, cutting your eyelid when blinking is terrible.

~~~
cr0sh
> Wear goggles when grinding steel and even if you do, take care when washing
> your face afterwards.

Go one further: Goggles and a face shield, minimum. Why?

Have you ever had a right-angle grinder wheel explode? I have (it was actually
a cut-off wheel). At the time I wasn't wearing even goggles, just my eye
glasses. Amazingly, nothing hit me in the face, but I do remember hearing the
part ricochet around my friend's shop (fortunately, I was the only one in it
at the time).

Unfortunately, a piece hit my knuckle - extremely hard; I thought I had lost
my finger, but amazingly not (oh, I wasn't wearing gloves, either).

I should've got stitches, but my friend took care of it; we washed it out,
wrapped it up, then he gave me a percocet to take the edge off the pain. I
remember at one point we looked at it after it had been a few hours, to see if
I could still move it; I started to flex it, and had a small Monty Python
flesh-wound moment (seriously, it made me laugh it was so cliche looking -
though completely real); but I could move it. All's good today, still typing
with it!

Basically me doing everything wrong (it really was all my fault, I shouldn't
have been handling that equipment - I think I was also wearing shorts, a
t-shirt and open-toe sandals at the time - a total DERP moment, but that's all
it took), I knew better even then, but I was stupid that day. Faster than you
can blink, bam, and there it was.

I take a lot more precautions now before I handle spinning cutting/grinding
shit moving at 20k RPM (though I am still not a fan of my friend's open-guard
9 inch grinder - the thing will grind anything off anything, but holy hell is
it dangerous to use - if that thing let loose, no amount of safety equipment
will save you).

Oh - and if you are arc welding, don't wear a white shirt; reflection of the
arc can bounce off inside your helmet, and still cause "welder's blindness" \-
which is basically a nice sunburn to the cornea; generally not a permanent
thing, but hurts like hell for a long while.

~~~
jessewmc
Also, use a guard on angle grinders! And keep it in between you and the work!
A man was killed by an exploding cutting disk at a company I used to work at.
Shrapnel lodged in his chest, he took the guard off to get at something more
easily.

~~~
lostlogin
Yes. It's a tradesman hack to buy a 115mm grinder (it's cheap), take off the
guard and fit 125mm disks. People have been killed here recently by broken
bits firing out. Cutting disks are so thin that a minor course correction can
easily break them. Someone I know had a labourer use a grinder with a broken
on off switch. One day the guy put it under his arm and plugged it in, and it
cut through artery, vein and nerve. A year later and he is just starting part
time work.

------
plainOldText
1\. Person suffers a loss or misfortune.

2\. Person decides to dedicate resources to educate and prevent the misfortune
from happening to somebody else.

I think these people should get more recognition; it is a proof of their
commitment to our society and to the well-being of their fellow humans. Much
appreciated!

~~~
roel_v
I don't quite see it that way. More often than not, it's

1\. Person suffers a loss or misfortune.

2\. Person makes widely inaccurate extrapolations on the actual danger,
without seeing the broad implications or consequences by scaring people into
woefully uninformed behavior, under the guise of 'but look! it happened to me!
It'll happen to you!'.

Case in point from the media last week: ticks and Lyme disease. Some woman on
the news on a personal crusade against Lyme because she contracted it when she
was 13 and it caused major issues in her 20's. Sucks for her, of course, and
some sort of public awareness about checking for ticks when you've been out in
nature is good; but her message was hysterical. Our local equivalent of the
CDC basically says 'we have basic awareness campaigns, but we don't want to
scare people from going outside, because the benefits outweigh the risks'. And
then you have one person who has her 15 minutes of fame, spreading massive
misinformation about risks to a general population that isn't capable of
understanding the concept a normal distribution curve, let alone make an
assessment on an epidemiological risk.

~~~
Kenji
Except that the tick danger is not exaggerated. If you frequent the woods (and
I mean, go inside them, not just staying on the paths), then you _will_ get
ticks (clothing doesn't make a difference unless you go in a space suit). And
if you keep doing that for years, you will rack up a dozen - or rather, dozens
- of ticks, and chances for tick-borne diseases are surprisingly high.

~~~
toufka
This depends on so many things - your comment is precisely hysterical.

It depends on where you live, whether or not you check yourself after you
leave the woods, what kinds of ticks they are, whether the disease is being
carried, and what kind of disease it is.

I grew up in the woods. I've had lots of ticks crawl all over me. I've only
been bitten a time or two. And the ticks I've encountered don't carry Lyme's
disease.

And that is NOT to say that my experience is everyone's experience and that
there is no danger. But your comment is absolutely exaggerated.

~~~
Kenji
My statements are true for most of central Europe. They are also true for
large parts of the US. Solid data backs this up. This is not an emotional
argument, tick prevalence is a well-researched field with lots of data.

~~~
roel_v
The data says it's likely you'll get ticks, but _not_ that you'll suffer
severe consequences if you do minimal care. Every bushcrafter and scout knows
to check for ticks. The prevalence of life-long Lyme disease with debilitation
consequences is very small. I know that you're not even claiming otherwise,
but the way you're making your argument is scare mongering and misleading to
those who know nothing about ticks and tick-borne diseases.

------
zimablue
The only thing I can contribute to this is my experience of one-eyedness. I
think people are probably more afraid of it than they should be, having had
eyesight in two eyes till I was early twenties I can remember the difference.
In terms of your daily life it's almost no impact, there are three things that
for me are important.

Reduced spatial awareness on the bad side (duh), so you'll be slightly more
likely to stumble a bit or bump into something and seem clumsy

Certain sports are much harder and you pretty much couldn't compete in them -
almost any sport involving a ball. However this leaves lots of sports and I
was fairly successful in grappling sports afterwards

Low level fear - I don't have a spare and being actually blind is obviously
orders of magnitude more impact on your life.

~~~
dimillian
It's amazing you mention that, I have amblyopia, but I actually learnt about
that name into my late twenties. I always had a lazy eye (had an operation
when I was 4, but did nothing...), so that lazy eye never properly developed,
it hava a vision of like 2/10\. It only see the left far side, very blurry, so
I have an almost 100% field of view, but that's about it.

It never bother me, except what you talked about, is some very particular
tasks, some task like filling a glass of water can be challenging as I have no
parallax, so no real depth of field. Sometimes I can't tell if your glass is
right under my jug or not. Sports with ball, forget it, ping-pong and
badminton was just impossible for me in high-school/college. Bumping into
things happen often, and no 3D movies for me, also VR is a lot less appealing
and immersive :(

~~~
duckingtest
I have amblyopia in one eye too, try doing LSD or one of its semi-legal
analogues. While on 300µg I was able to read with the lazy eye and got 3d
vision. I was looking at a tree with lots of branches and suddenly it clicked.
I retained 3d vision for about 2 weeks afterwards, progressively weaker.

Interesting experience. 3d vision really means depth is directly perceived in
the same manner as width and height. Now I understand why so many people are
afraid of heights.

~~~
dimillian
Funny thing actually there are treatments for amblyopia and they consist of
hiding your good eye while you're watching psychedelic/highly coloured images
with your other.

Can't find the name of the company who do that, I did contact them, but mine
was too severe to be considered for trials.

------
jameslk
As a former contact lens wearer, infections like these, amongst a lot of other
reasons, are why I chose PRK (laser eye surgery). Statistically, there's a
higher chance of infection with wearing contacts than there is with receiving
laser eye surgery[0]. I paid about $3k and came out with better vision than I
had with glasses/contacts. The only negative side effects I've noticed are
slight starbursts around lights at night, but its never been a problem and now
I rarely notice it.

I would also recommend PRK over LASIK because LASIK requires permanent flaps
to be cut on the surface of your eyes. This can sometimes lead to some nasty
accidents with the flap being damaged in certain cases. PRK has been around a
lot longer and requires wearing bandages over the eyes for a couple of weeks,
which is why LASIK became more popular for a while (i.e. the flaps act as
bandages). But now they can provide contact bandages for PRK where you aren't
blind and useless for weeks making LASIK less desirable.

0\.
[http://www.webmd.com/content/article/128/117072.htm](http://www.webmd.com/content/article/128/117072.htm)

~~~
dao-
> I would also recommend PRK over LASIK because LASIK requires permanent flaps
> to be cut on the surface of your eyes.

The newer SMILE procedure does not require a flap:
[http://eyewiki.aao.org/Small_Incision_Lenticule_Extraction_(...](http://eyewiki.aao.org/Small_Incision_Lenticule_Extraction_\(SMILE\))

~~~
dood
I'm interested in getting this, but am concerned that it is much less battle-
tested than PRK. I'm currently leaning toward PRK since it is so tried-and-
tested.

~~~
hatsunearu
Go for PRK if you have low correction. I had -4.50 on both eyes and LASIK was
kind of dicey. Just know that for a month or 1.5 months you're blind,
guaranteed. Don't freak out like I did.

I also got weird stuff like my own blood plasma that has been centrifuged and
filtered to put in my eye, as well as Mitomycin-C. Your doctor may offer
those, and both of those seemed to have clinical trials to reduce the chance
of hazing.

Just think whether or not glasses bother you so much that you need it though,
I never really got bothered by glasses a lot, and laser ablated vision is a
little wonky for me because my pupils dilate a lot and that causes lots of
starbursting at low light which I think I didn't see with glasses.

------
tsukaisute
I'm a contact lens wearer for about a couple of decades, and never had a
problem. However, contacts are not for everyone. I have seen friends:

\- Pick up a dropped contact lens from the floor, blow on it, and put it on

\- Take it out/put it in without any hand washing

\- Rinse contacts with tap water

\- Reuse the same lens for weeks just because

What I do:

\- Wash hands before handling

\- Rinse fingers with contact/saline solution for a couple of seconds

\- Use daily disposables and do not reuse them

\- If I drop a lens, I just grab a new one.

It's hard to make decisions based on this unfortunate story without
understanding that person's hygiene/lens wearing habits, personal health
history, and so on.

YMMV.

~~~
cholantesh
That level of discipline is definitely beyond me! I'll continue to stick with
glasses until I get my ICL surgery, I suppose.

~~~
Bluestrike2
Daily disposables make the hygiene aspect ridiculously simple: wash and dry
your hands, and throw them out when done. They're individually cheap enough
that tossing a dropped lens every so often doesn't really hurt.

Of course, when I started I ran into an interesting issue: occasionally I'd
wind up pulling them out briefly and reseating them for comfort. Once or
twice, that bit me in the, er, eye when an eyelash got inserted with the lens.
I wound up trying a couple different brands as a result, before stumbling on
my current choice (Dailies Total1 lenses). At the risk of sounding like an ad,
they're beyond comfortable and practically impossible to feel. Which has its
own disadvantages. On a couple of occasions, a lens got shifted to the side of
my eye and I wound up putting another one in the following day. And let me
tell you, that's painful as hell after a few seconds.

I just wish there was a similar disposable lens designed to alleviate digital
eyestrain. No way in hell would I willingly go to 30 day lenses.

~~~
e12e
What is "digital eyestrain"? I know some people claim yellow/orange glass
glasses help - but if it's dry eyes, it might help to simply blink more often
- maybe set a timer like for exercise/change position? And perhaps add in a
round of focus exercise (focus far/focus close; repeat)?

~~~
Bluestrike2
It's also called computer vision syndrome, and is pretty common. Everything
you mentioned helps alleviate it. But I've noticed that my contact lenses
sometimes seem to precipitate it; at other times, they're perfectly fine.
After doing a bit of reading, a relatively new aspheric lens design (Biofinity
Energys) might help with that. But I'd rather just wear my glasses while
working than deal with monthlies.

0\. [http://www.eyedolatryblog.com/2017/01/tired-eyes-
understandi...](http://www.eyedolatryblog.com/2017/01/tired-eyes-
understanding-aspheric.html)

------
alatkins
As a contact lens wearer for almost 20 years, I wasn't aware of this. I
regularly swim and shower with lenses in my eyes.

I'd really like to understand what role the lenses play in the infection
occurring. Presumably an eye without a lens could also get the infection from
a water source?

~~~
fastball
Do you wear dailies or monthlies?

I've worn both, and whenever getting monthlies, my optometrist always told me
not to get in the water with them/avoid getting water on them. In regards to
dailies, it apparently shouldn't be an issue, as presumably if you get in the
water with a daily, you'll probably be taking it out <12h later.

~~~
glormph
I was under the impression that dailies were an elaborate scam, as they were
identical to monthly contacts except for price. Have been wearing my dailies
as monthlies but maybe I should research this a little bit more.

~~~
foldr
Dailies are prone to tearing if used multiple times.

------
unculture
I happen to know Irenie personally. One of the things that she's done to help
others in the wake of her illness is to get together with other patients and
medical practitioners at Moorfields Eye Hospital to write a pamphlet with
information about Acanthamoeba Keratitis. It has information about the
condition in easy to understand language.

Here it is:

[http://www.moorfields.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/acanthamoeb...](http://www.moorfields.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/acanthamoeba-
keratitis-patient-leaflet.pdf)

------
pinum
I don't mean to be insensitive to reenw/others, but this thread has thoroughly
validated my decision to stick with glasses.

~~~
Insanity
Yeah.. it's something I ponder every now and then. Been wearing contacts for
10 years, and never really had an issue with them.. But I know that if
something was to happen I would feel a lot of regret.

It's a shame that headsets and glasses don't work together that well, and I
hate the smudges that you get on glasses with a passion.

------
gnulnx
I've been wearing monthly contacts for 3 years now. I take them out each night
and soak them in a 3% hydrogen peroxide solution (Clear Care), and dispose of
them on the first of the month.

I highly value my sight, so I have a routine which makes me feel comfortable
with sticking things in and touching my eyes twice a day. My optometrists have
always told me to avoid using water, saliva, etc, to clean the lenses, and so
I do.

1\. Wash my hands with soap and water, and usually scrub my fingernails with a
brush.

2\. Grab a fresh paper towel and pat dry my hands to sop up the water. Rubbing
my hands with the paper towel, in my opinion, could leave fragments which
could transfer to my eye / behind the contact.

3\. Open the contact container, pull out the right lens, close the contact
container.

4\. Insert the right lens.

5\. Repeat step 3 with left lens.

6\. Clean up the area with the paper towel from step 2.

I regularly (nearly every day) shower with the lenses in, though while I make
an effort to avoid getting water in my eyes, splashes obviously happen. I've
also spent weeks vacationing and swimming in the ocean with the lenses in.

It is my hope that by removing and disinfecting the lenses each night I can
ward off infections while also minimizing inconvenience.

~~~
Insanity
I have been wearing lenses for 10 years now and swim regularly with my lenses
in. I do wear swimming goggles but of course some water sometimes enters my
eye - never had a problem because of it.

I had one eye infection in my life which happened right after going to the
optometrist and having my eyes checked (they put a fluid into my eyes to
dilate the pupil, after that putting my lens in seemed to irritate my eye and
caused an infection somehow).

But one thing I can not do is shower with my lenses in. I have done it several
times but it always makes me feel so uncomfortable, the feeling of my eyes
becomes so annoying (I suppose due to essentially taking steaming hot showers,
the rising water vapor or something irritates my eye).

------
enraged_camel
My dad is an eye doctor and has too many of these types of horror stories.
While contact lenses are amazing, the fact of the matter is that the general
population is either too ignorant or too careless to use them responsibly. So
lots of people get infections or worse.

Both my sister and I used to wear contacts, but we ended up getting LASIK done
several years ago. Best decision of our lives.

~~~
tovkal
My fear with LASIK (and the other procedures) is that there isn't (I think) a
ton of people who have had LASIK when they were younger (like 20) and lived up
to 90 years old to know if there might be issues as we age, or incompatibility
with other procedures... I worry that it could cause problems further down the
line, as we age.

There's lot of people who've had these procedures done, mostly without
consequences but some with issues of varying degrees of severity, but there is
not a ton of people who've had this early in their life and been fine for 70
years.

Though I suppose plenty of people were corrected in their 50s or older and
lived much longer and never had an issue.

~~~
Retric
LASIK dates back to 1983, so that's ~33 years worth of age related data. AKA
some people aging from 25 - 58 and other doing 57 - 90, plus plenty of people
in between. Also, considering how common it is there will be plenty of guinea
pigs for the next LASIK alternative.

Further, people with Lasik will still get near or far sighted with age, but
they tend to be better able to function without glasses.

------
martyvis
I've always been fearful of correcting my -7 short-sighted vision with
anything other than spectacles. Probably started while I was working as an
electrical engineer at a steelworks and being told of the risks of watching a
high intensity electric arc from welding or a high voltage electric contact
break and then inadvertantly peeling away your cornea removing a contact lens
because of the fluid between the two drying out.

~~~
test1235
I have contact lens for my -8/-8.5. I've never been exposed to anything as
intense as welding, but when my lens dried out from exposure to a bbq or
bonfire, they're more likely to fall out of my eye than stick to it. The lens
kinda goes brittle rather than shrinkwrap onto my eye.

------
bello
Wow. The article says that she was wearing daily disposables, which are
supposed to be much safer. Did AK really settle within <24hrs time?

~~~
wapz
I really wonder this too. I've known people who used daily contacts but would
leave them in for multiple days at a time (and one was a swimmer). I've swam a
lot with my contacts before as I'm mostly blind without my contacts and don't
want prescription goggles. This article makes me a little more reluctant to go
swimming with contacts but I throw them out every night.

~~~
roryisok
I wear monthlies, but when swimming I swap for dailies, chuck them right after
and wear glasses for the rest of the day. I feel safer that way. But I don't
take any kind of precaution in the shower. I didn't even realise there was a
risk there.

One more thing to live in fear of besides climate change, cancer, drug
resistant bacteria, nuclear war, terrorism and the singularity. Yay.

Should I feel better or worse that it's far less likely to affect me than any
of those things?

~~~
rblatz
Additionally in the U.K. hot water may not be as safe as it is in the US.
Older houses tended to be built with a hot water tank in the attic (loft) and
apparently some were somewhat open to the elements and animals. A legacy of
that is the dual taps you find in bathroom sinks/tubs.

~~~
roryisok
The contact lens cleaner solution always insists that you wash your hands with
it instead of tap water. I think I'll do that from now on when changing
contacts

~~~
wapz
I think that's a little overboard. If you just wash your hands with soap and
water and dry them with a non-bacteria infected towel I'm guessing you
shouldn't be at risk.

------
anon263626
Another more common eye(lid) problem people often give themselves is painful
infections on the tip of the eyelids called styes. It's usually caused by
someone rubbing their eyes with their hands because it's a double-whammy of
cross-contaminating eyes/hands and it embeds surface bacteria into crypts of
sebaceous glands.

Also, I heard from a contact wearer another painful accident is forgetting to
rinse contacts with sterlie saline after they've been cleaned, that it burns
pretty good. Nothing like losing your corneas, but still Pavlovian human
monkey training.

~~~
test1235
Back in my monthlies days, I forgot to rinse on a couple of occasions. My God,
the pain is excruciating. There's no waiting it out, and hoping your tears
will clear the burning - I had to squirt saline from the bottle directly into
my eye to flush it all away.

------
djrogers
Interesting that incidence of this appears to be a full order of magnitude
higher in the UK than in the US (.2 per 10k vs 2 per 10k for contact wearers).
Wonder if we treat our tap water more rigorously, use more chlorine in our
pools, or are the contacts themselves different?

[1]
[https://www.hindawi.com/journals/joph/2013/670242/](https://www.hindawi.com/journals/joph/2013/670242/)

~~~
Underqualified
As a European who has visited the US: you put a lot more chlorine in your tap
water.

It smelled and and tasted like our swimming pool water to me.

Edit: and your swimming pool water had if course even more chlorine, much more
then I'd expect to find in Europe.

------
ufukbay
I have worn monthly contact lenses for almost 9 years without problems and
switched back to glasses couple months ago because my eyes got tired and itchy
too fast in front of the computer at work (I'm a front end dev so I spent most
of the day in front the computer screen).

I have to admit that I didn't know that contact lenses shouldn't come in
contact with water and that it could lead to such disastrous effects which can
even end in loss of eye sight. However the first time I was at an optician to
figure out what kind of lenses I need, they explained me very carefully that I
should -always- wash my hands and dry (and not touch anything else other than
the lenses in between) them with a clean paper towel before putting in our
taking out my lenses.

Furthermore never to reuse the cleansing liquid you put into the little boxes
where you store your contact lenses. I strictly followed this procedure over
the years without any problems but when I was at the eye specialist to get my
glasses subscribed I told her that I never had any infections using contact
lenses and she smiled and said that it's only a matter of time. This really
got me thinking because I was planning on using daily contact lenses for when
I do sports or go out. :(

~~~
tsukaisute
Have you tried switching to daily disposables? Also, f.lux for computer work.
Both have been very helpful here for what you describe.

~~~
lucaspiller
I wore contact lenses for 10 years, stopping a year or so ago. I had monthly
disposables and would wear them daily from around 8am - 10pm without any major
issues (although my eyes did noticeably become dry/tired in the evening it
wasn't that serious).

The reason why I stopped was because the lenses started becoming dry quickly
and I just couldn't see the screen clearly after wearing them for a couple of
hours. Nothing in my computer setup or usage habits changed. I've seen various
optometrists, but they couldn't give me a reason why this was happening. They
just said if I can see better with glasses, I should do that for computer use
:D

I now only wear dailies, but very rarely - usually only if I'm doing sports or
swimming (although maybe I won't after reading this article...). Before
switching I tried different brands of contact lenses (both monthly and daily),
as well as turning down brightness and flux, but they weren't helpful in my
case.

------
roystonvassey
Wow! This article couldn't have come at a better time for me. I recently
started wearing contacts so that it's easier when I work out. But, I also
started showering after my workout with the lens on. While I thought I was
being plain lazy, I had no clue I was exposing myself to such a big risk!

Thank you so much for posting this and thanks to the lady in the piece for
spreading awareness about this!

~~~
e12e
I occasionally use dailies - for swimming. But your example, and some of the
stuff online doesn't makes sense: the difference between _showering_ wearing
contacts and without is that the contacts scrape up the cornea, and that the
natural washing of tears become less effective (lenses trap all sorts of stuff
on the eye).

It sounds odd that if you throw away lenses after showering anyway - the risk
would be different?

Sounds like if one has been wearing lenses for a few hours, one should take
precautions with getting water in the eye - with or without lenses?

Also it appears, swimming with dailies - if one wears glasses before/after and
throw away the dailies - should be reasonably safe from what I can gather?

Alternatively, it would seem a lot more people would be infected even not
wearing lenses at all?

------
fastball
That's awful, but I'm not buying that she was:

A. wearing dailies for only a day at a time

B. didn't shower/swim with them

It is incredibly unlikely that a bacterial infection from tap water would be
able to manifest itself on an otherwise healthy eye in less than 16(?) hours.
The timeframe/exposure just doesn't add up for me.

~~~
tray5
>It is incredibly unlikely that a bacterial infection from tap water

It's not bacterial, it's amoebic.

I think you're being unduly skeptical and I can't find a reason beyond your
own intuition, which doesn't really hold much weight against first hand
accounts from individuals and trusted news sources without any clear bias or
motivation to be misleading.

~~~
fastball
I'm not skeptical that this problem is correlated with wearing contact lenses,
I'm skeptical that this problem is _not_ correlated to wearing them correctly.

My point is: who is more likely to get an infection? The people that sterilize
their cuts and scrapes, or the people that don't? Same thing here: for such a
tiny subset of total contact wearers, it's unlikely that it has nothing to do
with your lens hygiene. I doubt any one of the 125 AK sufferers in the UK were
following recommended lens care/application to the letter. That does not seem
unduly skeptical to me.

------
caf
So, I never dried my hands before handling my lenses - I'd wash them
thoroughly, rinse them with tap water, then rinse my fingertips again with a
little saline or lens cleaning solution. My intuition was that my hand towel
was likely to be laden with bacteria - is this wrong?

~~~
doktrin
I have a similar usage pattern, and in the wake of this article I've been
pondering how to safely dry my hands before handling contacts. Perhaps paper
towels?

~~~
Insanity
From what my optician recommended was to indeed blod them dry with a clean
towel each time. But, I am not taking care of them that well, I rub them dry.
I am not sure if blodding makes a difference.

------
jbmorgado
It's pretty nice to see her reaction to all of this. Instead of grieving and
going around writing blogs blaming people she instead actually set up a
successful campaign and is working so that no more people suffer her fate.

Now, this is very refreshing and nice to see, she seems a great person.

------
mungoid
I dont think i have ever put contacts in with dry fingers. I always have them
wet from faucet.

So thanks.. Thanks for adding one more very rare thing for me to be constantly
afraid of.

------
throw2016
This thread is a bit jarring. And I think confirms why normal discussion is
nearly impossible online now.

Dissent is expressed by 'affecting' expertise but not actually offering any
evidence of expertise ie. I am an eye doctor or I am a researcher in this area
or I have some experience in this area, and here is the evidence and informed
opinion from the industry and research.

Skepticism is backed not by reason or logic but rushing to minimize or rubbish
the claims with outrageously baseless innuendo about the author's hygiene and
'personal feelings'.

You can be never too careful when it comes to your eyes, and yet the thread is
seemingly full not of dissenters and skeptics but people who apparently don't
care.

Since no rational individual responds to risk by ignoring or dismissing them
that's not a scientific mindset, it's an irrational mindset overwhelming
discussion and debate.

This is a toxic attitude in most cases. What makes it inexcusable is we can
all be 110% sure if it affected them personally or their family in the
slightest way they would not be rushing to diminish or question the authors
hygiene but asking for her help.

~~~
Chris2048
Which thread? You aren't responding to anything.

------
pcunite
Maybe we should make our own sterile water?

To make sterile water, you must do the following: 1\. Use a pressure cooker, a
hermetically sealed pot or an autoclave. Make sure that the temperature rises
above the normal boiling point of water. 2\. Fill the cooker with water. 3\.
Place cooker with water on a heat stove. 4\. Boil water for a minimum of 20
minutes. 5\. The temperature within the cooker should be maintained at 121
degrees Celsius or 250 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the boiling period.

[http://www.cascadehealthcaresolutions.com/How_to_make_steril...](http://www.cascadehealthcaresolutions.com/How_to_make_sterile_water_a/347.htm)

------
vowelless
Wow.

This has got me thinking of getting Lasik or prk so eliminate this whole class
of potential issues.

~~~
pc2g4d
I knew a guy whose PRK surgery was... unsuccessful. It mostly improved his
vision, but one eye was always fuzzy. He had to wear sunglasses for an entire
year, and kept hoping somehow the eye's inflammation would calm down and
things would improve, but nope.

Our eyes are incredible. Whenever we try to improve them, we incur risks. I'm
sure glasses are included in this.

------
doktrin
This is informative. I often don't dry my hands between washing them and
handling my contacts - ironically because I worry about germs from my hand
towel ending up in my eye. TIL.

------
hammock
I thought I had pink eye one time, went to the doctor weeks later after it had
resolved itself and she said I had scarring from a corneal ulcer. If the
scarring had been in the center of my eye as opposed to the corner, I might
have lost vision. Was related to contacts.

More to the OP: Contact fluid has disinfectant in it, is it a solution to put
a drop of it on the contact (inside) before putting it on? So any bad things
that might get stuck under there are killed.

------
noafternoon
Well, my hypochondria just kicked in. Taking my contacts out and working in
glasses this afternoon since I ran out of my hydrogen peroxide solution last
night and used regular no-rub solution in an old case (which I rinsed with
solution before hand).

The CDC puts the rate of AK infection at 1-33 per million contact lens
wearers, in case that makes anyone feel better. Still, it's something people
should be aware exists.

------
joyofdata
> Research suggests the density of pain receptors in the cornea is 300-600
> times greater than skin and 20-40 times greater than dental pulp,[14] making
> any injury to the structure excruciatingly painful.[15]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornea)

Incredible! Why are there any pain receptors at all?

~~~
xienze
It's nature's way of telling you "your eye is important and whatever the hell
is happening, MAKE IT STOP".

------
emodendroket
Ok, well there's a new thing to worry about.

------
carlob
I wear hard gas-permeable lenses, and AFAIK those have to be washed with water
as well as some detergent and then rinsed with water. Does anyone know if all
the article says applies to hard lenses too?

For those who don't know the difference, hard gas-permeable lenses are more
like a piece of hard plastic than a gel like substance, they can't dry out.

------
ilhank
So my habit of doing a martial arts class with contacts, showering at the gym
with them in, and then continuing the rest of the day or evening with the same
pair of daily contact lenses is a significant risk to my well-being? I need to
bring an extra pair and switch them out after my shower, making sure to wash
and dry my hands beforehand?

------
bitwize
If I hadn't chosen from an early age to accept the stigma of wearing glasses
over the hassle of using contacts, this would make me nope the fuck out of
using contacts even if it meant having to use the lamest, most Steve Urkel
glasses they had.

------
Clownshoesms
Quite hellish. I've done all of the no-no's in here many times in my youth
(passing out and peeling lens off the next morning, washing in tap water etc)
and must be lucky.

I wonder if those corneal scrapes are safe though.

------
mkevac
Is it safe to swim with one day only contact lenses and goggles?

------
hello2
Are RGP lenses less likely to cause this disease than normal soft lenses
(daily or monthly)?

------
ianai
I recently tried contact lenses for the first time...rethinking it now.

------
joshuaheard
Someone needs to invent a sterile applicator.

------
ldev
No, you were blinded by your own hygiene... Using contact lenses for 7 years
now.

~~~
doktrin
You're either trolling, or you didn't think this through. People can do all
kinds of potentially dangerous things for an extended period of time without
negative consequences (heroin, football, diet pills, etc). Extrapolating
anything based solely on your own survival is weird.

Moreover, the infection being discussed in this article is incredibly rare -
and contact lenses are generally quite safe - so the fact that neither you nor
anyone else commenting here has been exposed to it shouldn't be surprising.
That you've made it 7 whole years without going blind isn't some vindication
of your own hygienic patterns, or an indictment of hers.

