If you wear contact lenses, there's a good chance you've probably kept them in longer than you're supposed to.
Let's be real: Taking these things in and out of your eyes all the time can be a serious pain in the ass.
Plus, it's incredibly easy to forget you have them on. So, you fall asleep with your contact lenses still in your eyes.
However, Meabh McHugh-Hill, 23, learned wearing contacts for too long can actually have some eye-opening consequences.
Apparently, the film studies graduate from Liverpool left her contact lenses in for 10 hours, which exceeds the eight-hour recommended wear time.
While this measly two-hour difference may not seem like a big deal, it was actually enough time for one of the lenses to GLUE to McHugh-Hill's eyeball.
In fact, the contact lens was so attached, McHugh-Hill accidentally tore her cornea while trying to remove the damn thing from her eye.
Seriously, if ripping your eyeball in half doesn't confirm all your worst fears about wearing contacts for too long, I don't know what does.
According to The Liverpool Echo, McHugh-Hill's injury caused the affected eye to immediately shut. It also made her other eye extremely sensitive to light.
In fact, any exposure to light made her eyes hurt so badly, she had to spend five days in complete darkness.
Luckily, McHugh-Hill didn't lose sight in her left eye throughout the whole debacle.
However, she was told by her doctors she won't be able to wear contact lenses for the rest of her life.
McHugh-Hill relayed the whole painful incident to The Liverpool Echo, saying,
I ran upstairs to take them out and stupidly, in a rush, I just pinched my eye first like I normally would do to get the contact out. But I should have moistened them first – because this time my eye was so dry, the contact had actually glued itself to my eyeball. I was so, so lucky. I could have lost my sight. I just didn't realise how dangerous wearing contact lenses could be if your eyes are not moistened.
While this may be the most severe issue McHugh-Hill has ever had with her eyes, it's definitely not the first.
Apparently, she chronically suffers from dry eyes and infections, which is why she usually needs to use eyedrops in order to put her contact lenses in.
In this particular instance, her eyes were so dry, they actually caused the contact lenses to fuse right to her eyeball.
As you can see from her photos, this scenario doesn't end well.
As a result of her injury, McHugh-Hill has permanent scarring on her eye. So, she can never wear contacts or undergo laser eye surgery in the future.
If you don't want the same fate, most experts recommend you wear your contacts for a maximum of eight hours per day. Also, NEVER fall asleep with those things in your eyes.
Citations: Metro UK
