Woman has contact lens removed after 28 years

A woman has had a contact lens removed from underneath her eyelid 28 years after she thought it had fallen out.

Originally reported in The British Medical Journal, doctors in Dundee made the discovery after the patient complained of a swelling around her eye. An MRI scan revealed this to be a cyst that the Rigid Gas Permeable (RGP) lens had been lodged in.

The woman had been hit in the eye by a shuttlecock while playing badminton when she was 14, and it was assumed that it had been knocked out of her eye by the impact.

The research team at Ninewells Hospital in Scotland told the BBC: ‘Spontaneous migration of a hard contact lens into the eyelid is a relatively known occurrence. This case report exhibits the longest time between traumatic RGP lens migration into the eyelid and presentation of eyelid swelling.’