Doctor who removed 23 contact lenses from patient's eye has 'never seen anything like it'

Okay, if you forget all the brilliant eye puns you can tie in, this story is really not for the fainthearted.

Dr. Katerina Kurteeva revealed an odd incident she had where she had to remove over 20 contact lenses from a patient's eye.

The patient said she had felt something in their eye... yeah I bet they did.

But to help, the ophthalmologist set about identifying the source of the pain.

You have been warned, watch the video at your own peril because it can certainly make your skin crawl:

She quickly discovered there was a total of 23 individual contact lenses and had to be removed and the visual is just as gruesome as you are imagining.

Posting the footage to Instagram on her account @california_eye_associates, Dr. Kurteeva showed her followers exactly why people always tell you it's a really bad idea to sleep in your contact lenses.

The video was captioned "Don't sleep in your contact lenses" and told viewers the patient had kept forgetting to remove her lenses before going to sleep and kept putting new ones in. Ouch.

She also later explained more about the astonishing discovery and how so many managed to build up in the first place.

The patient went to bed with her contact lenses in on numerous occasions, causing a skin-crawling build up. (Instagram/@california_eye_associates)

Speaking to Insider, Dr. Kurteeva explained how she managed to identify the problem and how all of the lost lenses just kept coming out of the patient's eye.

She said: "In nearly 20 years of practice, I had never seen anything like it.

"The patient couldn't believe it either and asked if I was sure about the number I was counting. This patient was very fortunate - she could have lost her vision, scratched her cornea, or gotten an infection.

"Although I can't be certain of how she managed to forget to remove all those lenses, it could because she had been wearing contact lenses for 30 years."

The doctor had never seen anything like it in her 20 years of practice. (Getty Stock Image)

While you might think someone would be able to feel 23 contact lenses wedged behind their eyes, Dr. Kurteeva explained that the patient's long history of wearing lenses had desensitized her eyes so wouldn't have felt it as much as they might have done.

Taking 23 lenses from behind the eye of someone who kept sleeping in her lenses should be encouragement enough not to do it, and people can seriously damage their eyes by napping in their lenses, so make sure you remember.

Topics: News, Health

Gerrard Kaonga

Gerrard is a Journalist at UNILAD and has dived headfirst into covering everything from breaking global stories to trending entertainment news. He has a bachelors in English Literature from Brunel University and has written across a number of different national and international publications. Most notably the Financial Times, Daily Express, Evening Standard and Newsweek.