Teenager with a parasite burrowing into her eyeball is kept awake for a WEEK

A student was nearly left blind when a parasite burrowed into her eye and began eating her cornea from the inside out. 

Jessica Greaney, 18, believed she had an eye infection - but within a week her eye was red and had swollen to the size of a golf ball.

She was admitted to hospital where doctors told her she the parasite Acanthamoeba Keratitis was burrowing into her eyeball and could leave her blind.

The parasite can even cause death as it eats its way through the eye and into the spinal cord. 

She had to have eyedrops to kill the parasite administered every ten minutes, leaving her unable to sleep for seven days straight.

Mrs Greaney's problems began when her eyelid began drooping, and she believed she had an eye infection.

A few days later this was misdiagnosed as an ulcer by doctors.

But as the week progressed her eye began to swell and go red.

She said: 'But, by the end of the week, my eye was bulging, and it looked like a huge red golf ball.

'It was swollen, and extremely painful, and they admitted me into hospital.

Doctors clamped open her eye and scraped off a layer with a scalpel - which was then sent away for testing.

Miss Greaney , who is studying English at the University of Nottingham, was told she had the parasite - Acanthamoeba Keratitis — found in almost all soil, fresh water and sea water.

It thrives where limescale and bacteria are present, but contact lens wearers are at highest risk if they clean their lenses or lens cases in tap water, or if they swim, shower or bathe while wearing their lenses.

This means the parasite can become trapped between the lens and the eye, allowing it to burrow into the eyeball. 

Indeed, Miss Greaney had got the parasite into her eye after she kept her lenses near the sink where they were splashed with tap water.

She said: 'Apparently, all water has tonnes of different types of bacteria and the Acanthamoeba just happens to be one of them.

'One of my contact lenses got contaminated, and the parasite survived in the area between the lens and my eye.'

If untreated, the parasite causes sight problems, paralysis and even death as it eats its way through the eye and into the spinal cord.

Speaking to student newspaper The Tab, she said: 'They had to keep me awake for a week.'

Doctors needed to apply eye drops every ten minutes in order to treat the parasite. 

A nurse would come into her room throughout the day and night to wake her up and hold open her eyes to squirt the droplets in.

Even if she nodded off for a few minutes, she would soon be woken up for her next round of medication.

Miss Greaney added: 'I wasn’t allowed to sleep properly for nearly a week.

'It was not dissimilar from Chinese water torture.  After the fourth day, not only was I going insane and crying every five minutes, nothing was changing.  

'This parasite was still eating my eye and even worse, my immune system was shutting down because of my lack of sleep.'

Even when she was discharged from hospital, she still had to continue taking 21 droplets a day, until eventually the swelling and redness subsided.

Miss Greaney has been wearing contact lenses for just two years, and had no idea that she could contract an eye parasite from normal water.

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