Woman goes blind in one eye after a parasite attached to her cornea when she went swimming
A mum was left blind in one eye after a microscopic parasite latched onto her cornea while she was swimming.
Stacey Peoples, 49, from Denver, was left without vision in her left eye after contracting acanthamoeba keratitis, a rare infection in which an amoeba attacks the outer layer of the eye.
The mum-of-four was misdiagnosed with conjunctivitis in June 2014, but her eye became so painful during her family’s Independence Day holiday in Michigan she could not leave her bedroom.
She believes she contracted the infection at her local pool when she wore contact lenses while swimming with her eight-year-old son Charlie.
“The pain was so intense,” the mum said.
“It felt like someone was snapping a rubber band against my eyeball every four or five seconds.”
“The back of my eye felt like it was going to blow out the back of my brain.”
Ms Peoples described having an “intense migraine” with both eyes and her nose “constantly” watering as the whites of her eye turned bright red.
“I didn’t know it was possible to produce this much fluid,” she said.
‘I asked them to take my eye’
The mum was rushed to the emergency room in Traverse City, Michigan, when she completely lost vision in her left eye, which had clouded over “like a zombie’s”.
Medics determined Ms Peoples’s eye was being attacked by acanthamoeba – a microorganism that lives in common water sources and in rare cases can cause severe infections.
“She said, ‘We have to try and save the eye and worry about vision later’,” the mum said.
“The pain was so, so bad, I asked them to take my eye, but they said that they needed to do everything to save it.
“I had lost my vision completely by this point. All I could see was white.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 85 per cent of acanthamoeba keratitis cases occur in contact lens users.
Contact lenses can create small abrasions in the eye, which make it easier for the amoeba to attach when the eye comes into contact with water.
Ms Peoples was forced to apply painful eye drops every two hours for five months to kill the infection and was in so much pain she could not stray far from her bed.
The mum was forced to take a seven-month leave from her job to fight the infection, which had completely destroyed the outer layer of her eye leaving her blind.
“I was prescribed eye drops which essentially contain pool cleaner to kill the parasite,” she said.
“I was using the drops every two hours until December, and for those months I moved from my bed to my rocking chair and back again.”
Mum receives transplant
Luckily, the mum was deemed a good candidate for a cornea transplant and underwent the procedure in Good Samaritan Medical Center in Lafayette in April 2015.
The blinded mum was amazed when she could see clearly after the procedure.
“When the patch came off two days after the surgery, it was amazing,” Ms Peoples said.
“I went into hospital unable to see and then came out and could see so clearly.
“It’s been wonderful. I have a little bit of trouble with depth perception but with glasses I have 20/20 vision.”
While she’s now a “huge advocate” for organ donation, Ms People is warning others not to wear contact lenses in water.
“This is rare but it can happen. Even if you’ve been doing it for twenty years like me,” she said.
“Doctors tell you not to do it. My doctors think I picked this up in the pool while wearing my contacts.
“I’m just lucky I have such a wonderful family. Otherwise I would never have gotten through this.”
– With Mega
