LONDON: In a shocking incident, a man in Florida lost vision in one eye shortly after falling asleep with contact lenses on. According to a report published by Mirror, twenty-one-year-old Mike Krumholz had fallen asleep wearing his contact lenses, however, a rare flesh-eating parasite that developed into his eyes led caused a severe infection resulting in vision loss in one eye. Krumholz later narrated his story that he had decided to take a nap after a busy day but he forgot to remove his contact lenses. He has been wearing contact lenses for nearly seven years and is no stranger to eye infections or getting ‘pink eye’ if he ever forgot to remove them.

However, this time things took a worse turn and Krumholz was diagnosed with acanthamoeba keratitis in the right eye.  According to doctors, Krumholz fell asleep with his contact lenses on and contracted acanthamoeba keratitis, a rare flesh-eating parasite that gets in the eyes and starts to eat away the tissue.

Due to the damage in his right eye, He was in darkness for over 50 days unable to work, study or generally live his normal life. “In my bedroom, I have the hurricane shutters up and all the lights blacked out. It’s very weird not being able to see people,” he was quoted as saying.

“You don’t want people to feel bad for you but at the same time you want to be living like a 21-year-old who is in college,” he added. Krumholz later created a GoFundMe page to spread awareness to other contact lens wearers and help support himself while he fights the debilitating parasite. He was able to raise close to USD 1,000 out of his USD 10,000 goal.

On the page, created on February 7, Krumholz narrated what happened to him. I woke up and it felt like bad allergies or maybe even pink eye. I was misdiagnosed with HSV1 in my eye but after five different ophthalmologists and 2 cornea specialists visits, I was diagnosed with a very rare parasite in my eye called acanthamoeba keratitis,” the 21-year-old said. “I have had one surgery so far called PDT relocation of the conjunctival flap,” Krumholz said, adding that it is extremely painful and he has “absolutely no vision” in one eye.

After over a month of seeing five different ophthalmologists and two cornea specialist visits, he was even misdiagnosed with HSV1 (Herpes simplex virus) in his eye, a conclusion was finally made that he had the flesh-eating parasite.

Krumholz has since undergone one surgery called PDT (photodynamic therapy) which is a relocation of the conjunctival flap. He has also made an appeal to other people who wear contact lenses to not sleep or take shower wearing them.