Before putting contacts in the eyes, a whole hygiene system exists to keep the lenses sterile and clean. Reminders to only use specific solutions on the contacts involve disinfecting the contact lenses to avoid issues in the eye. Water contains many microbes swimming around, having lives, and making more microbes. Microbes constantly look for a new home and food to eat. Despite all the chlorine in the pool, the microbes flourish. In a river or lake, a whole ecosystem of microbes flourish. The microbe that constantly searches for a new place to live is the amoeba.
Amoeba Found a Home
Acanthamoeba keratitis is listed as a corneal infection that creates an eye ulcer. Its ubiquitous free-living lifestyle is that of a protozoan parasite in water. It flourishes in tap water, well water, ponds, swimming pools, and hot tubs. Two forms can splash into the eye while swimming. A dormant cyst form that floats around looking for a home and the motile feeder that makes baby amoebas called trophozoite. Those without contact lenses encounter the amoeba while swimming, but it does not stay in the eye since tears push it out. Those who wear contacts have a suitable home in their eye. Water splashes in the eye and gets underneath the contact lens, and the amoeba decides it is time to have babies.
Amoeba babies need food, so it encourages bacteria in the water to join at the contact lens house in the eye. Amoeba and babies eat the bacteria. The microbes attack the cells on the cornea, creating a bacterial infection, and the amoeba gets a pond of food. The contact lens house has now become a bacteria farm. Abrasions appear, and the group of microbes begins forming an eye ulcer. If not taken care of, the amoeba and bacteria head for the stroma. Stroma is the connective tissue in the eye epithelial cell layer and where the blood vessels lie.
What if Feels Like to Have an Amoeba in the Eye
The first sign begins with the eye crying out in pain, which does not make sense. The eye looks normal but hurts. As the amoeba grows and takes up residence, epithelial irregularities appear as well as lesions as it nests in the eye with its bacteria farm. As the amoeba farms the bacteria, a discharge appears, and one day, the eye becomes inflamed and red. Most patients describe the feeling of a moving foreign body experience in the eye, but they cannot see or find the speck of dust. The patient’s description is correct, but the foreign bodies are tiny amoebas and bacteria on the cornea that are not seen but in constant movement across it.
Prevention of Amoeba Experience
Clean contact lenses with proper solutions daily. Do not take a swim with contacts on. If by chance a person accidentally takes a swim with contacts on, remove the contacts immediately, flush the eye, and change the contacts or disinfect.
Treatment
Ameboa infestations have no single treatment. It usually takes a combination of drugs to eliminate the amoebas in the eye. That happens because the cyst stage of the amoeba is nearly indestructible, so a person is treated with a waiting period for cysts to evolve to the amoeba and then another treatment. Treatment can last for months. If the amoeba reaches the stroma, it’s much harder to eliminate it.
If a person develops pain in the eye and wears contact lenses, contact the doctors of Houston Lasik to check the eye and confess about swimming with contacts. The sooner treatment starts, the sooner the amoebas stop roaming and making homes in the eye’s cornea.
Since 2005, Houston LASIK has been providing surgical vision correction technologies to patients from the Greater Houston Area and all over the world. The center specializes in multiple premium technologies including LASIK, EVO ICL (Intraocular Collamer Lens), ASA (Advanced Surface Ablation), and RLE (Refractive Lens Exchange). Houston LASIK & Eye is well known for using state-of-the-art technology and personalized care to help patients see their best. Patients receive customized surgical solutions from a team of highly experienced and award-winning ophthalmologists and optometrists. For more information, visit www.houston-lasik.com or call 281-240-0478.
Sources
- https://dailyparasite.blogspot.com/2019/02/acanthamoeba-spp.html
- https://www.college-optometrists.org/clinical-guidance/clinical-management-guidelines/microbialkeratitis_bacterial_fungal
- https://www.aao.org/eye-health/glasses-contacts/contact-lens-care
- https://bmjophth.bmj.com/content/5/1/e000476
- https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ea7a/3378eba01a620c54cb316364c477f1fe79e9.pdf
