Doctors Remove 27 Contact Lenses From A 67-year Old Woman's Eye Just Before Surgery

A 67-year-old woman was scheduled for
routine cataract surgery before doctors at
Solihull Hospital in the UK found 27 contact
lenses, stuck in the woman's right eye.
In an article published in the BMJ this
month, Rupal Morjaria, a specialist trainee in
ophthalmology and author of the paper, said the
woman hadn't complained about any visual
trouble before the operation until Richard
Crombie, a consultant anesthetist at the
hospital, was beginning to numb her eye for
surgery when he found the first cluster of
contacts. "He put a speculum into the eye to
hold the eye open as he put the anesthetic in,
and he noticed a blue mass under the top
eyelid".
That mass was a clump of 17 lenses. The other
10 were discovered in an additional
examination. "We were all shocked, We've never
come across this" Morjaria said.
The woman had been wearing monthly
disposable contact lenses for 35 years.
Sometimes, she told the surgeons, when she
would try to remove a contact from that eye,
she couldn't find it.