Welcome to Case of the Day!
A young man came in complaining of losing his contact lens behind his eye. He was very concerned that the lens was going to be behind his eye and was going to do damage or something, and he knew it was in there and he just couldn’t find it and get it out. In this article, we’re going to discuss a little bit about what happens in that situation.
It’s not an uncommon situation where people think they have a contact behind their eye, and their eye feels irritated. They’ve searched and looked, and they’ve tried to get a lens out of their eye, but it’s just not there.
The first thing to do if you have lost your contact is to make sure that your vision is no longer clear in that eye. You need to cover up your other eye, and if your vision is not clear, then you know that your contact lens is either missing or could be dislocated from the cornea, the clear part of your eye.
A contact lens sits on the cornea, at least a soft one, over the clear part of your eye to provide good vision. When people think they have a lens in their eye or they’ve lost it and are trying to find it, they keep trying to pinch the lens out of their eye. What happens is that their eye actually gets irritated, and they experience the sensation of having a lens in their eye because they’ve actually irritated it by trying to get something out that’s most of the time not there. When someone says they have a lens behind their eye, it’s most commonly that their eye is just irritated from them playing around and pinching their eye for a while, rather than actually having a lens still in their eye. However, that does happen occasionally.
You don’t have to worry about this lens going behind your eye and then causing some kind of damage because it’s going to slip behind your eye and never be found again. We’ll discuss a little bit about the eye anatomy.
The white part of your eye is covered by a lining called the conjunctiva. The conjunctiva starts where the clear part ends and right where the white part starts, and that contains the blood vessels in your eye. When you get an eye infection, pink eye, or conjunctivitis, those blood vessels in the outer coating of your eye become engorged or inflamed, then your eye gets red. This coating goes along the surface of your eye, and then it dead ends just about almost halfway back around the eye. Then it goes across, connects to the tissue behind your eyelid, and starts coming forward, then ends right at the edge of your lid.
So there is a dead end. That is, there is a cul-de-sac or recessed area where this conjunctiva goes back, then turns around and comes back on the lid, which means that this can only go this far back as far as your eye is concerned. It can’t go behind your eye and do something.
On a rare occasion, Dr. Croley has found a couple of people who came in and said, “I think I’ve got a lens in my eye,” and actually had two or three lenses stuck up in the area mentioned above, and they’ve just left the contacts there, never knowing they were there.
When you think you have lost a lens or think a lens may still be in your eyes, it’s always good to come to an eye doctor like Dr. Croley at the Cataract & Refractive Institute of Florida. We make sure that there’s nothing stuck further back because that could, being a foreign body, cause you to get an infection at some point down the road, so you do want to remove those. However, it’s actually very uncommon that we find lenses there. Most of the time, it’s just your eye being irritated. You don’t have to worry about the lens suddenly getting way back behind your eye, because it dead-ends at the recessed area and can’t go any further back.
If you have questions about contact lenses or are looking for prescription contact lenses Cape Coral FL, contact lenses Bonita Springs, or contact lenses Naples FL and the surrounding areas, contact the Cataract & Refractive Institute of Florida today to schedule an appointment. If not, may God bless you with healthy eyes and great vision.
Best Eye Doctor in Fort Myers, Cape Coral, and Nearby Areas
At the Cataract & Refractive Institute of Florida, our board-certified ophthalmologist, Dr. James E. Croley III, uses state-of-the-art tools and techniques to help his patients manage their eye issues and vision problems. Dr. Croley is a member of the following professional organizations:
Schedule an appointment online or call our office near you!
Eye Doctor Cape Coral FL Office
- 613 Del Prado Boulevard, 33990
- (239) 772-2122
Eye Doctor Lehigh Acres FL Office
- 1150 Lee Boulevard, 33936
- (239) 368-1020
- 4061 Bonita Beach Road, 34134
- (239) 949-1190
