英女子戴隱形眼鏡游泳致失明大綱

A woman lost the sight in one eye after going swimming in a pool at a hotel spa wearing contact lenses.

Jennie Hurst, from Southampton, contracted acanthamoeba keratitis - a rare and painful infection caused by amoeba which naturally occurs in water.

The infection causes hypersensitivity to light and the 28-year-old said she was confined to a dark room for three months. She is now warning of the dangers of swimming or showering wearing contacts.

Ms Hurst underwent four operations, stays in hospital, and a treatment regime in which she had eye drops administered every half hour.

She said: "During that time I was literally confined to my bedroom with blackout blinds at the window. The only thing I could do was to listen to the radio.

"One evening, I was so desperate to look out of window to get a glimpse of the outside world that I opened my curtains in the middle of the night.

"As soon as I did this the moon shone in my eyes and it really hurt. I didn't do that again in a hurry."

Ms Hurst said she has been left with no vision in her left eye and the damage to her cornea could be permanent.

The environmental coordinator, who had been wearing contact lenses for five years, went swimming at a hotel while on a residential training course with work.

"The irony is that I don't even like swimming - I only did a few laps," she said.

"My consultants were quite surprised that I had gone swimming and probably thought that I had been a bit lazy whereas I wasn't aware of the problem at all - it didn't even enter my brain to take them out.

"I felt guilty that I had let it happen when actually I could have just taken my contacts out and saved everyone a lot of time and bother and myself a lot of pain.

"I have always been so careful with my contact lenses. I always remove them when sleeping and always use contact lens solution to wash them."英國一位女性近日因戴着隱形眼鏡在一家賓館的溫泉池游泳，導致一隻眼睛失明。

詹妮•赫斯特來自英國南安普敦，她患上了棘阿米巴角膜炎。這種罕見的角膜炎可使患者眼部疼痛，由一般生活在水中的棘阿米巴原蟲引起。

這種感染可導致見光敏感。28歲的赫斯特說她不得不在暗室裏呆了三個月。現在她警告大家，不要戴着隱形眼鏡游泳或者洗澡。

赫斯特接受了4次手術，現在還在住院，還經歷了半小時滴一次眼藥水的治療過程。

她說：“那段時間我只能呆在臥室裏，窗邊都不能有光線。我只能收聽廣播度日。”

“一天晚上，我太想看看窗外的世界了。我在半夜拉開窗簾。”

“我剛一拉開窗簾，月光就照在了我的眼睛上，太疼了。我馬上拉緊了窗簾。”

赫斯特說，她的左眼已完全失明，角膜也造成了永久損壞。

赫斯特是一名環保協調員，戴隱形眼鏡已經五年了。當時她正在進行住宅培訓課程，在一家酒店下水玩了一會兒。

她說：“很諷刺的是，我根本不喜歡游泳，就是下去玩了一會兒。”

“我的顧問對我去游泳非常驚訝，可能認爲我有點兒懶，其實我根本不清楚戴隱形眼鏡游泳的危害，我甚至都沒想過要取出眼鏡。”

“發生這種事情，我感到很內疚，其實我當時應該取出眼鏡，這樣就可以不浪費大家那麼多時間，不給大家帶來麻煩，也不讓自己如此疼痛。”

赫斯特說：“我戴隱形眼鏡一直很小心，每天睡覺前我都取出，而且經常用專用護理液清洗隱形眼鏡。”