I’m sharing my terrifying flesh-eating parasite ordeal so you don’t make my mistake
For most people, a short nap is harmless and you usually wake up feeling refreshed.
But when Mike Krumholz settled down for a nap, he never thought he’d wake up blind in one eye due to a flesh-eating parasite eating away eye tissue.
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The 21-year-old is now sharing his horrifying ordeal lest others make the same mistake he did.
Mike, who wears contact lenses, didn’t remove them before he fell asleep.
When he woke up, Mike from Florida, USA said his eye was irritated and also pink.
He added: “My contact lenses just felt very irritated, like they were floating in my eye. I took them out and there was nothing wrong,” he told The Daily Star.
Mike said he knew he had to take his lenses out and told his parents that “something is wrong.”
When he first saw his doctor, he said he had been wrongly diagnosed with herpes simplex type 1.
He then went to five ophthalmologists and two cornea specialists, who all said the same thing, and sent him off on antibiotics and steroids.
However, medics later told him that this only accelerated the rate at which the parasite spread.
He was finally diagnosed with Acanthamoeba keratitis on January 21 at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute.
This is a rare but serious infection of the eye that can lead to permanent vision impairment or blindness, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
The infection is caused by a microscopic, free-living amoeba (unicellular living organism) called Acanthamoeba.
Mike had to undergo photodynamic therapy, which involves removing the white of the eye and placing it over the pupil to ward off the parasite.
The Signs of Acanthamoeba Keratitis You Need to Know
Acanthamoeba causes Acanthamoeba keratitis when it infects the eye’s transparent outer covering, the cornea.
Acanthamoeba amoebas are very common in nature and can be found in bodies of water (e.g. lakes and oceans), in the soil and in the air, according to CDC state medics.
Symptoms can be similar to other eye infections and can last for several weeks or months.
Key signs to look out for include:
- eye pain
- eye redness
- Blurred vision
- sensitivity to light
- feeling of something in the eye
- Excessive tearing
If you have any of the above, you should see an ophthalmologist.
CDC experts said that if left untreated, Acanthamoeba keratitis will eventually cause pain and vision loss.
He now has no vision in his right eye other than flashes of black and gray which he said are like the noise from the television.
Mike said his cornea was “cloudy” because the parasite had eaten away so much of it.
Because of his age, he is not a candidate for an eye transplant.
His eye is also currently too inflamed to harvest tissue from another human eye, and Mike said his body would likely reject a transplant.
If he can get one in the future, it would give him 50 percent of his sight back.
By sharing his experiences, he hopes other people don’t sleep in their contact lenses.
He said, “There are a lot of people who are in contact lenses right now who have been like, ‘Hey, I just slept in my contacts, should I go to the doctor?’
“I used to sleep in my contacts with no problems, but I’m trying to get the message out that there are problems with them. It’s not okay now.”
Mike said nothing could have prepared him for the pain he has endured since he became infected.
In addition to the physical pain, Mike also has to put up with not working.
He too had to drop out of college, but praised his parents for being able to help him financially.
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https://www.the-sun.com/health/7442293/sharing-terrifying-flesh-eating-parasite-my-mistake/ I’m sharing my terrifying flesh-eating parasite ordeal so you don’t make my mistake