Parasite In Eyeball Eats Eyes, Grows On Contact Lenses

A parasite in the eyeball of a Florida high school student almost caused her to go blind. The parasite grew on the student’s contact lenses and then tried to eat through her eyeball.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, parasites in eyeballs are not the only gross things that can happen to you. A pig tapeworm was removed from the brain of a punk rock singer. Your iPhone 4S can now be used to discover intestinal worms. Everyone has to shudder when they hear the story of how visitors to a hotel drank and bathed in water contaminated by a dead human body floating in the water tank.

Florida teenager Ashley Hyde nearly went blind from an infection in her eye. Doctors were fairly stumped at first when they saw her extremely red eyes and blurred vision. But then they realized she had contracted an acanthamoeba infection in her left eye after failing to change her contact lenses regularly.

These microscopic parasites are normally found in water and soil. But the parasites went in her her eyeball, literally eating their way through, forcing doctors to operate in order to save Ashley’s vision. She describes what doctors did:

“They did multiple cultures where they scrape your eye. One time, they had to drill into my eye. It was really nasty.”

Centers for Disease Control says that, “Most people will be exposed to Acanthamoeba during their lifetime, but very few will become sick from this exposure.” Optometric physician Dr Adam Clarin said this story should give good reason to change your contact lenses every day. Clarin explains, “”Every day, we see people come in with contact lens related to infections, complications, ulcers. These are all things that are potentially blinding.”

What do you think about this parasite in eyeball horror story?