A woman has reportedly went blind in one eye after making a grave error with her contact lenses.
Last year, Rachel Prochnow, an Austin, Texas-based lifestyle writer, did something she’d done countless times before: she showered without taking the lenses out.
What started with some light irritation in her right eye quickly deteriorated. ‘The pain makes giving birth look like a walk in the freaking park. [It] was absolutely unreal.’
Within two weeks Ms Prochnow, who was 34 weeks pregnant at the time, had gone completely blind on that side.
Doctors told her that a parasite found in water had gotten into her eye, likely while she was showering, and burrowed into the delicate tissue, damaging it.
She had always been careful about taking care of her eyes, having worn contacts since she was 12. She always took them out at night, cleaned them well and threw away her contact lens cases regularly – ensuring everything was sterile.
But she was never knew that showering, swimming or hot tubbing in her contact lenses could leave her vulnerable to infection.
‘I thought I was doing everything right. I wasn’t,’ she said.
Doctors eventually diagnosed her with acanthamoeba keratitis.
‘Because of the severity of the disease, we had to induce at 27 weeks,’ she said on TikTok, sharing that two months postpartum, she was ‘still fighting this painful disease.’
The condition is caused by the acathamoeba parasite, a single-celled organism, found in lakes, oceans, tap water, soil and air, according to the CDC.
An estimated 1,500 Americans get it each year, according to The Cleveland Clinic. Roughly 90 percent of those cases occur in people who wear contact lenses.
It effects the cornea, which is the clear, outermost layer of the eye. Wearing contacts can create microscopic tears in this layer – which the Acanthamoeba parasite can enter.
If the parasites successfully get into your cornea, they may multiply and spread, causing eye pain, redness, blurred vision, light sensitivity, and watery eyes. Eventually, this can lead to blindness.
If doctors catch the condition early enough, they can treat it easily with eyedrops.
In about 40 percent of cases, doctors have to perform surgery – scraping the outside of the eye to remove the parasites and later repairing the area through transplant.
That’s what Ms Prochnow had to go through.
After initially being misdiagnosed by five different doctors, she consulted with specialists and had her cornea scraped.
She then started a rigorous course of eye drops that had to be applied every 30 minutes for three months, with the help of her parents and her husband Cameron.
She was also given intense drugs, similar to those used in cancer treatment, and had to get regular blood tests done to ensure the medications weren’t sending her into liver failure.
‘Had my parents and Cameron not been fully committed to getting me through this-I would have without a doubt lost it,’ she said.
A year and 82 doctors visits after she had been initially diagnosed, Ms Prochnow went into surgery to get her cornea replaced with one from a deceased donor.
The surgery went well.
Whereas before she could only see light and hand movements, now she can see and read the biggest letters on a vision chart. Her vision is far from perfect, but she’s able to correct it with glasses.
Now, she’s focused on raising awareness about the condition and raising her one year old, Lachlan, who was born in July 2023.
Some of the tips for reducing your likelihood of getting this infection include taking your contacts out before showering, avoiding swimming with them in, never using tap water on your contacts or to clean your contact case and not wearing your contacts for longer than necessary.
The Texan mom shared her story in an Instagram post that has gained over 742,000 likes.
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