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Newport Beach doctor removes '23 contact lenses' from patient's eye
An ophthalmologist in Newport Beach said she thought she had encountered her "Guinness Book of World Record moment" after removing 23 contact lenses from a patient’s eye.
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. - If you forget to remove your contacts before bed, you may want to think twice after watching this.
A viral video out of Newport Beach shows an ophthalmologist removing 23 contact lenses from the eye of an elderly woman.
Dr. Katerina Kurteeva shared the video on social media of the patient who came in saying she was feeling a pain developing in her eyes and her vision was turning blurry.
The patient, who is in her mid-70s, had started forgetting if she had removed her daily wear contact lenses.
Dr. Kurteeva ruled out debris or a scratch on the patient's cornea. She used another medical device - known as an eyelid speculum - to further examine the eye. This device enables the doctor to hold open the patient's eyelids at the same time.
That's when she spotted the edges of a dark purple blob of contact lenses in the deep pockets of the patient's eyelid.
"They were coming out in a chain, drooping down her lid. There were a lot of contact lenses. I thought this could be my Guinness Book of World Record moment," Dr. Kurteeva told Insider.
"So next thing I know, I'm pulling on this blob and it's like a deck of cards. Basically, these contact lenses, they're very thin and they're very smooth. So over time, they just kind of created this kind of like a pancake of contacts, and they're all congealed. But once I started going at them with a Q-Tip, it was kind of like doing a deck of cards. They were just all coming out one after the other," she added.
Once all the contacts were removed, the patient felt relief right after and was sent home with some eye drops, Dr. Kurteeva said.
The doctor says the patient is fortunate she did not lose her vision. She was advised to stop wearing contact lenses and give her eyes a much-needed break.