A ferociously busy, sunny day earlier this summer, and after a few weeks of travelling and living out of a suitcase, I was still not fully unpacked.
That morning I pulled a contact lens case out of my sponge bag, swiped out each lens – the reusable kind, which I change every fortnight – and bunged them into each eye as casually as I had done since I first got contacts aged 16.
No cleaning, no mirror. I may not even have washed my hands.
For those of us who use contacts, it’s a familiar scene. But it is also the beginning of a cautionary tale, for my undeniable carelessness almost cost me my sight…
The first sign of trouble came later that day as my eyes began to feel itchy. I cursed the pollen count, took an antihistamine pill and chucked in some eyedrops from a little bottle that rolls around the bottom of my handbag.
It did no good – by the time I cycled home at 5pm, there was a nimbus glow around everything and no amount of blinking could clear my vision. I couldn’t wait to take the lenses out and retreat to my trusty specs.
Once home, I peeled the plastic discs from my eyeballs, blinked in relief and then froze in horror. The blurriness was still there.
I told myself not to panic and grabbed a bottle of saline solution that I keep by my desk and sluiced both eyes repeatedly. It didn’t give the usual relief, but instead felt like I was rinsing my eyeballs in sulphuric acid – and it turned out to be the worst thing I could have done.
Susannah Jowitt had been happily wearing reusable contact lenses since she was 16 – often without cleaning them or washing her hands
But after this usual routine, her eyes became itchy and her vision grew blurry. Susannah then rinsed her eyes with saline solution which, instead of bringing relief, left her functionally blind
Within seconds it was as if the room had filled with thick smoke. And suddenly I could see nothing, not blurred shapes, not even colour. My world had become a binary one of dark and light only.
Less than 12 hours after that first itchy blink, I was functionally blind.
For a moment I wondered if I could sleep it off, but when a friend dropped by and saw me, she whisked me straight to Moorfields Eye Hospital in London.
As I progressed through the various triage stages of their A&E, each blink a self-harming slash to my eyeballs, each brightly lit hospital room another flamethrower assault on my sight, I berated myself.
I had clearly stashed my lenses in a case that had been in my sponge bag a while. I hadn’t cleaned them with fresh solution, hadn’t washed my hands. And the eyedrops and saline had both been open far longer than the stipulated month. After 40 years of uneventful lens usage, I’d thrown away my sight in half a day through my own fatal neglect.
‘You have a double corneal infection,’ said an ophthalmologist at Moorfields, matter-of-factly. ‘Both corneas are covered in so many ulcers that I’m glad we were able to catch it when we did. Ironically, the eyedrops you used will have actually “fed” the infection, causing it to speed up.’
I couldn’t see him clearly but his voice took on a stern edge. ‘If your friend hadn’t brought you in this evening, by morning, the ulcers would have covered the eye too extensively and you might well have lost your sight.’
I later discovered that certain types of bacteria are so aggressive they can break down corneal tissue in a single day.
The terror of what I’d nearly done to myself washed over me.
‘Dirty water or unviable contact lens solution are most likely the culprits,’ he went on. ‘Do you ever shower or swim with lenses in?’
‘Nearly every shower for the last 40 years and every single swim,’ I replied. ‘I’m far too shortsighted to swim without them.’
He tutted gently. ‘None of our water is sterile – microbes can get trapped between your lens and the surface of your eye and then work their way in and cause these ulcers on the cornea.’
Hostile microbes burrowing into my eyeball? I was now on the set of a horror film.
I was given antibiotic eye drops, to be dripped into both eyes hourly, throughout the day and night, my alarm set for every 59 minutes for the first 48 hours, then hourly during the day alone for two weeks.
I didn’t mind the tyranny of this timetable, as each drop felt like healing balm from the gods. Miraculously, I could see within minutes of taking the first ones. Blurred at first, my eyeballs still red and weeping, still cringing at bright lights, but within a day or two, I felt nearly fine.
A doctor explained that she had a double corneal infection, pictured with orange dye around her eyes, following the first stage of tests at A&E
But after taking antibiotic drops, her vision began to clear and her eyes were back to normal in a couple of days
I wasn’t allowed to go back to wearing my fortnightly contact lenses for six weeks, and only then after a series of tests but, vanity gone, I wore my glasses with relief.
In this brightest of summers my eyes need shading more than ever, but I put aside my beloved sunnies and bought clip-on shades. ‘It’s a strong look,’ my husband assured me. ‘A little bit Gary Oldman as Count Dracula.’
Neha Shah, the optometrist at my Specsavers branch, later performed a series of tests and told me I had been lucky.
‘There is no scarring on either of your corneas, so you can go back to wearing your reusable lenses – for a maximum 14 hours a day and only six days a week.'
She added: ‘Change solution daily and rinse and rub each lens in the solution for at least 30 seconds before use.'
Ouch. Thirty seconds is longer than I brush my teeth for and there are 32 of them.
My corneas may not be scarred but, mentally, I am. Corneal infections are unusual but not rare.
So now I’m super-vigilant. I put my lenses in after the shower and studiously stick to the 30-day limit on all solutions. I boil and air-dry my contacts case fortnightly, wash and dry my hands as soon as look at my eyes.
Daily disposable contact lenses would remove some of these hurdles but, at double the price of reusables, are too expensive for me, so I will just have to be more careful.
Above all, I pay my eyeballs the respect they deserve. I know now the eyes have it hard.