Brits warned after UK mum of three’s eye eaten by parasites after simple mistake

A mum has been left with her eye sewn shut after parasites ate it. The organisms ate through her cornea leaving her having to give up her job. All of this happened to Emma Marsden after she washed her face while wearing contact lenses.

The mum had been cleaning up after horses when she fell into a wheelbarrow filled with dirt and water. Emma went on to wash herself down and remove the mud but didn’t remove her contact lenses until much later in the evening. The 47-year-old was not immediately aware that parasites were eating her cornea either as four days later she referred herself to the GP with an “excruciating” pain.

While doctors initially wrote off the pain as an ulcer and discharged Emma with eyedrops, she found the pain intensified in the days after the appointment and eventually lost all vision in the affected eye.

On March 7, Emma received a diagnosis of acanthamoeba keratitis, a rare eye infection caused by a parasite burrowing into her cornea. Emma was also suffering from fusarium keratitis, a severe fungal infection of the cornea, along with corneal ulcers. The parasite is commonly found in tap water and is believed to have made its way into her eye after she had washed her face in February.

Emma said: “My eye was excruciatingly painful and red. When I woke up the next morning, any time light hit my eye the pain was so severe I couldn’t open my eyes.

“It’s pretty heartbreaking to think I might never see out of that eye again. It’s excruciatingly painful and everything just stops, your life stops. I’ve had three kids and giving birth is a dream compared to this pain.

“It eats through your eye and cornea and all your nerves. The speed it ate at the doctors couldn’t believe it.”

Emma is now being treated by hospital staff on a weekly basis and administers six doses of eye drops every two hours. She has since called on those who wear contact lenses to be vigilant.

“You don’t think about the knock-on effect just by not taking your contact lenses out in the shower or to swim in, or to wash your face in my case,” she said.

“I still wear my contact lenses in my left eye because it isn’t the contact lens that did this but it was the wearer [me] not having the knowledge of how to look after them properly and what not to do.”