I tripped and fell. Days later doctors discovered a parasite eating my cornea… now I may never see again

A woman has revealed how a simple fall led to her needing her eye sewn shut after she caught a parasite that ‘ate’ through her cornea. 

When Emma Marsden, 47, took a spill while working on her farm in February, she never could have imagined that it would result in months of agonizing pain and serious damage to her vision.

Marsden, who is based in the UK, explained that she had been cleaning out her horse stable when she accidentally slipped headfirst into a wheelbarrow full of dirt and water, leaving her ‘covered’ in mud.

But in the aftermath, she made a seemingly innocent mistake that would change her life forever. 

The 47-year-old mom-of-three said she immediately washed her face but didn’t take her contact lenses out until later that evening.

‘It was all slippery because it’d been raining. I slipped and went headfirst into the wheelbarrow. I laughed at myself and I thought, “This is your own silly fault,”‘ she recalled.

‘Mud covered my head, face, hands and hair. I went inside and I washed my hands and face and dried them off.’

Four days later, her right eye started stinging so she decided to go to the doctor. She was told it was likely an ulcer and was sent home with eyedrops. 

Over the following days, however, the pain became ‘excruciating.’

‘It got worse and worse … my eye was excruciatingly painful and red,’ she said. ‘Any time light hit my eye the pain was so severe I couldn’t open my eyes.’

When she started to lose her vision in the eye entirely, she rushed to the hospital. 

Marsden was ultimately diagnosed with acanthamoeba keratitis, a rare eye infection caused by a parasite burrowing into her cornea.

She also had fusarium keratitis, a severe fungal infection of the cornea, as well as corneal ulcers.

Doctors told Marsden that she caught the infection when she washed her face with her contact lenses in, as the parasite is commonly found in tap water.

According to My Cleveland Clinic, one of the most common ways for acanthamoeba to infect your eyes is through contaminated water.

‘Contact lens wearers make up at least 90 percent of AK cases,’ the site adds.

‘That’s usually because of a combination of factors. The factors include wearing contacts for too long, improperly storing contact lenses when not wearing them (such as using tap water to clean or store your contacts), incorrectly cleaning contact lenses or the cases you store them in, wearing contact lenses while swimming or showering, or using contaminated contact lens-related items, like storage cases or solution.

‘Acanthamoeba can survive in water easily, especially in cyst form. Even treated drinking water, bottled water or swimming pool water may not have a high enough chlorine concentration or other disinfectants. 

‘That’s why you should never use tap water with contacts or wear contacts while swimming.’

The parasite had created a hole in the surface of Marsden’s eye and she ultimately had to have her eyelids sewn together for a few weeks to help it heal.

She now needs a corneal transplant, which can’t be done for ‘years’ because of the parasite, and she has been told she may never see out of her right eye again.

‘It’s pretty heartbreaking to think I might never see out of that eye again,’ she said. ‘It’s excruciatingly painful. I’ve had three kids and giving birth is a dream compared to this pain.’

Marsden said she spent the first few weeks sitting in the ‘dark’ and ‘couldn’t go outside or do anything’ because of the pain.

‘I had all the lights off in the house and everyone had to eat in the dark. Everything just stops, your life stops,’ she went on.

‘You can’t go anywhere or do anything [without your eyesight], you have no independence.’

The pain has slowly started to improve, and she revealed she finally was able to leave her house for a social activity for the first time since it happened earlier this month.

‘You have no choice but to get on with it, you can’t sit there wallowing in self-pity,’ she reflected.

‘It’s a bad situation but I’m still here. I can walk, I can see with one eye and I can still hear. [Hopefully] it will get better over time.’

She still has to return to the hospital weekly for monitoring and takes six doses of eyedrops every two hours. 

‘Heartbroken’ Marsden is now urging people to not wash their face with contact lenses in. 

‘You don’t think about the [potential] effects of not taking your contact lenses out in the shower or to swim in, or to wash your face in my case,’ she said.

‘When you go to the opticians they do tell you don’t swim or shower in your contact lenses because you might get an infection and that’s it.

‘You’ve got to be careful with your eyes, until you’ve been through this or know someone you are quite blasé.’