An increasing number of people have been diagnosed with a debilitating condition known as Christmas Eye this summer.
It's a condition caused by an orthoperus beetle, which measures only half a millimetre in size, that is found predominantly in parts of eastern Australia.
"They are virtually impossible to see but the beetle itself has a compound in its blood supply that is a blistering agent," Wangaratta optometrist Rob Holloway said.
"When that gets in your eye and is released, that compound essentially makes the front surface of the eye fall off."
It causes severe pain, discomfort, and blurred vision — something Wodonga resident Pip experienced when she was diagnosed late last year.
"It basically feels like blow torches in your eye," she said.
Worsening pain
Pip had been out walking her dogs one afternoon and woke early the following morning to pain in her right eye.
"I have dry eyes anyway and I thought it was just that," she said.
She put some drops in and went back to sleep, but over the next few hours the pain intensified until it became unbearable.
She said that by the time she got up, it felt like a lump of gravel underneath her eyelid which she tried to flush out with water, but nothing helped ease the pain.
"By this time the pain was increasing and I thought I have to go see a doctor," she said.
Pip ended up in the local emergency department where she was diagnosed with Christmas Eye.
Cases spike
The condition, which is most common in north-east Victoria and parts of southern NSW, is also known as harvester's eye or Albury-Wodonga syndrome, yet many locals have never heard of it and research into it is minimal.
"It depends on the season, but we're in the epicentre for it," Dr Holloway said.
"We get reports from further west towards Echuca and further north towards Forbes and that part of the world, but it's mainly localised around here."
People usually present with symptoms from mid-November to mid-March and this summer has been particularly bad.
"This year has been quite unusual in that we've had no occurrences at all until probably the week before Christmas, then there's been a sudden spike in cases and then it's basically disappeared," Dr Holloway said.
His clinic and the emergency department in Wangaratta had more than 20 presentations in the week after Christmas and there had been several more reported in the Albury-Wodonga region.
Treatment
"Fortunately these days we use a bandage contact lens that goes over the affected area and that stops the air from getting to the damaged tissue," Dr Holloway said.
"We can use anti-inflammatory eye drops and of course some antibiotics as well just to guard against any infection."
Despite these treatments, he said the pain was quite significant during the healing process, which could take several days to fully heal.
With not much known about the bug itself, the only way to protect yourself against infection was by wearing protective eyewear when outdoors.
"Any sort of barrier, whether it be normal glasses or sunglasses, is a physical barrier to getting anything in your eye," Dr Holloway said.
