A RETIRED engineer has been horrendously blinded in one eye after a rare infection.
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| Stephen Souter, 63, has suffered ‘indescribable’ pain after his contact lens triggered an infection |
Stephen Souter, 63, has suffered ‘indescribable’ pain after his contact lens triggered a rare infection in which a parasite burrowed in to his eyeball.
He now has to use eye drops every two hours to prevent his eye from BURSTING.
The disease slowly destroyed his cornea and has left him blind in one eye, in what he and his wife have described as a ‘nightmare.’
The highly sensitive cornea is the clear window at the front of the eye and has the highest density of pain receptors in the body.
Mr Souter has been diagnosed with Acanthamoeba Keratitis, an infection caused by a microscopic amoeba found in water both outdoors and in our homes.
Most varieties of the organism are usually harmless but some can cause a serious eye disease if they infect the cornea.
Mr Souter, from Braunton, Devon, said: "It's been an absolute nightmare from start to finish.
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| Stephen and his wife have described the situation as a total 'nightmare' |
"It's affected everything - my work, my social life."
Mr Souter first noticed a problem last January when a redness developed in his eye and he was in so much agony he was kept awake all night.
He went to his GP the following day who referred him to an eye clinic, believing it was glaucoma as his father had suffered from the disease.
The hospital diagnosed an eye infection and prescribed eye drops but the pain increased.
Mr Souter went back to his GP weeks later and was referred back to the eye clinic in nearby Barnstaple but he was misdiagnosed with HERPES.
After being prescribed more eye drops, he was asked to return a week later but the pain got even worse and a small circle then appeared on the surface of his eye.
The eye clinic eventually diagnosed AK - which is notoriously difficult to spot in its early stages - and Mr Souter still had some blurred vision at that stage.
The vast majority of victims - some 85 per cent - are people who wear contact lenses where poor lens hygiene increases the risk.
Around one in 50,000 contact lens wearers in the UK are affected each year by the condition but only a minority of them lose their sight.
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| Mr Souter said: "It's affected everything - my work, my social life." |
In March, after being told there were no hospital beds available, his wife Tess - a nurse - offered to treat him at home with the extremely potent eye drops.
At one point she was putting them into his eye every 30 minutes for 48 hours.
Mr Souter recalled: "We had no sleep. That was a nightmare - every time she came up the stairs she had to shine a light in my eye and the pain was indescribable."
He was then referred to Exeter Hospital where a specialist prescribed slow release morphine tablets, which he has been taking since April.
He is also using two types of eye drops - Polyhexanide, which he applies EVERY two hours and Brolene, just before bed.
The drops are used to keep the pressure off the eye because if it gets too high, his eye could burst.
Tragically, the sight in his left eye disappeared completely in the summer.
He now faces another year of partial sight and treatment with the drops to kill off the infection before he is eligible for a cornea transplant - something he admits is bringing him down.
He said: "The trouble is, I get depressed with it. It drags you down because I'm on morphine as well which is a painkiller so all in all, it's affected my whole life because I have not got sight in one eye.
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| The majority of victim are people who wear contact lenses where poor lens hygiene increases the risk |
"So I'm walking around with one eye and they don't even guarantee that I'll get it back."
As well as experiencing excruciating pain and blindness, his life has been halted too and his wife is often left to help him do basic things.
He said: "I can drive but only in the night and I don't drive long distances - my wife drives me. I only drive round the village.
"I can work but it has an influence on my work and what I do. Overall, it's had a massive effect on my life, I'm just hoping to see the end of it."
Mrs Souter, 61, said: "It has been a never-ending, living nightmare, which came totally out of the blue.
"Now he has no confidence - I drive us everywhere. We are happy with each other's company but it's turned our life upside down."
Mr Souter caught the infection from daily disposable contact lenses, which he had been using for around three years.
"They were daily disposables which I used as daily disposables," he said.
"You're not supposed to swim, shower or sleep wearing them, and I did none of those things.
"Apparently you can pick this bug up from any water. There is a two million to one chance, and I was the unlucky one.”
"I would certainly warn anyone who is thinking of using contact lenses to consider the risks because it has completely ruined my life."
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