A 38-year-old woman was left partially blind after a flesh-eating parasite lodged itself in her left eye. Shereen-Fay Griffin, from Crayford, England, believes she contracted the parasite while swimming at a local leisure center in August last year. Two days after the episode, her left eye began to itch and hurt.
Shereen told the Daily Mail that she was diagnosed with acanthamoeba keratitis (AK), which can cause permanent vision loss. The amoeba eats away at the cornea, causing intense pain and extreme sensitivity to light. AK is common in soil and water, including tap water, rivers, swimming pools and hot tubs, according to Moorfields Eye Hospital. “(They) generally do not cause harm to humans, but can cause serious eye disease if they infect the cornea,” the institution informed the British newspaper.
The woman, who works as a school assistant, initially decided to use over-the-counter medication because, according to her, her eyelid felt heavy and she felt tired. When she realized that the medication had not resolved the problem, she went to a doctor, who prescribed a week’s worth of antibiotics and was urgently taken to a hospital.
There, she was diagnosed by an ophthalmologist with a herpes simplex eye infection – a viral infection that can cause eye pain and redness. She was given steroids and antibacterial eye drops. However, in the days that followed, her symptoms worsened, she told the British tabloid.
“I didn’t have a follow-up appointment. My eye was still hurting and I was running low on eye medicine. I called the hospital several times for a few weeks before going in there to find out what was going on,” said the British woman.
Shereen reported that in November she was approaching 10 weeks without a follow-up appointment and steroids four times a day when she woke up one day with excruciating pain and completely blindness in that eye.
After going to the hospital, a doctor diagnosed her with AK. According to Vision Scotland, the condition affects around one in 50,000 people in the UK every year. Patients are usually treated with prescription medications, but if left undiagnosed, the infection can cause scarring and blindness.
After the diagnosis, Shereen went to another hospital for treatment, where she was told that the steroids she was prescribed had worsened her condition.
“(I will only recover my vision) if I agree to a cornea transplant, which may not work,” he said.
