Doctors understood why girl was crying blood-stained tears

Doctors treating the bizarre case of an 11-year-old crying blood were astonished to find a rigid contact lens that had been lodged in her eye for two years.

The girl, from Hong Kong, went to her GP when her upper eyelid began to swell.

There, she and her mother were told she had a chalazion – a common problem in which a lump forms in the lid due to a blocked oil gland.

She was given antibiotics and sent home – but in the morning was horrified when she began crying blood-stained tears.

The girl was referred to an ophthalmologist – an eye specialist – and underwent CT scans, according to doctors describing her case in the journal BMJ Case Reports.

The images revealed a lesion at the top of her eye which was filled with fluid and had a hard edge.

Because of this, medics believed she might have a large cyst at the top of her eye - which can affect vision.

Back at the opthalmologist’s office her lid was turned inside out for a better look at the lesion.

To everyone’s shock, an old, hard contact lens spontaneously flew out.

It was then that the girl's mother suddenly remembered she had lost an orthokeratology lens two years before.

This was a lens given to her to wear overnight to reshape her cornea – the transparent layer at the front of the eye – to stop her short-sightedness getting worse.

Writing in the journal, doctors said it is hard to diagnose a lost contact lens in children as they are not able to give a detailed history - and are more difficult to examine.

Scans can also be misleading if the history of a lost lens is not revealed, they added. 

However the report does not detail what happened to the girl's sight after the incident.  

The news comes after MailOnline reported on the story of a salesman who nearly went blind after developing a horrific ulcer on his eyeball after wearing his contact lenses for 14 hours a day.

Andy James, was rushed to hospital when he began to experience excruciating pain in his left eye, which he said felt like 'daggers stabbing into his brain'.

He was diagnosed with ulcers on his cornea, the transparent layer over the front of the eye, and had to suffer yet more agony when doctors treated him.

To his horror, this involved injecting a needle into his eyeball - and hearing it 'pop' left him feeling violently ill.

Follow NEWS.am Medicine on Facebook and Twitter