A woman is claiming she has been left blind in one eye after rinsing her contact lens case in tap water and contracting a parasitic infection that ate away at her cornea.
Kyra Smith, 25, is completely blind in her left eye after contracting acanthamoeba keratitis - a sight threatening infection of the cornea, in March 2021.
The 25-year-old had worn contact lenses for the past six years - reusing ones that last for 30 days by washing them in contact solution and storing them in a case after taking them out each night.
But doctors believe that rinsing the case in tap water introduced harmful bacteria to the lenses as she was diagnosed with the rare infection after six weeks of 'back and forth' with eye specialists.
Within four weeks of contracting the infection, she had completely lost sight in the eye.
Kyra was housebound for months in agony as the parasite ate away at her eye and even underwent a failed cornea transplant before discovering the infection was still active.
The dental office worker is undergoing another course of treatment to kill the parasite before she hopes to have a second cornea transplant to try and restore her vision.
Kyra, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, US, said: "I had put my contacts in to go to work and felt a bursting sensation in my left eye but didn't think too much of it because it wasn't painful, it was just kind of there.
"When I got back home that night after my shift I took out my contact lenses and my eye was noticeably red but it wasn't hurting or anything at that point.
"I just thought it had to do with my contacts because they can be kind of uncomfortable and irritating for the eye.
"The next day I woke up and my eye was more red and by that night it was starting to hurt more and that's when I started to become worried."
She went to an eye doctor who couldn't give her a definitive answer of what was going on, but gave her some eye drops for an infection. However, these left Kyra in a lot of pain and she began experiencing "extreme" light sensitivity.
After six weeks of back and forth, doctors still weren't sure what was wrong with her eye, at one point giving Kyra medication for herpes.
"After that things went downhill - my light sensitivity was getting so bad that I couldn't be outside or look at my phone and it would travel to my other eye so even using my good eye was hurting badly," she recalled.
Kyra started losing her sight in April of that year and said it was "very rapid" after that, starting as a blur in the corner of her eye and spreading, before her sight was gone two weeks later.
Another specialist then diagnosed her with a bad case of acamthoeba, which she said was a "emotional" and "scary" moment.
Kyra contracted the eye infection while living in Florida and working in the tourism industry, but was soon forced to give up her career and move back home to New Mexico.
Her mum moved into her apartment to take care of her, as she spent five months unable to work and do basic tasks for herself.
The pressure and light sensitivity in Kyra's left eye even travelled to her 'good' right eye, forcing her to board all of the windows up in her apartment and avoid daylight completely except for going to doctors appointments.
During this time, doctors put her on an intense course of medication including antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, steroids and eye drops to combat the infection.
A year later, in April this year, doctors believed they had successfully killed the parasite and so Kyra underwent a cornea transplant in an attempt to restore her vision.
But they quickly realised that the parasite was in fact still active and had infected the new cornea, causing it to reject and taking Kyra back to square one on a second round of medication.
To this day she remains blind in her left eye but she hopes to undergo a second cornea transplant to restore her vision once she overcomes the infection.
Kyra said: "As soon as I got on the medication things just got worse for me - I was completely crippled and stuck inside my house for months and months.
"I couldn't watch tv, I couldn't hardly sleep, I couldn't use my phone and I had to completely black out the windows in my apartment.
"I couldn't do anything for myself, my mom even had to style my hair for me. Towards the end I was starting to feel very defeated by everything.
"Things are starting to get a little bit better and they're expecting that I'll get most of my vision back after the transplant."
Kyra also vows to never rinse her contact lens case in tap water again and urges others to be careful to avoid exposing their lenses to harmful bacteria as well.
"I always recommend listening to your eye doctor and never neglecting your lenses - there's so many more things than can happen and they can happen very fast,” she said.
"So it's important to understand the risks and realise that wearing contacts is a privilege and you have to care for your eyes."
