Lillie Barrett, a 22-year-old receptionist from London, found herself blinded for months after having lashes applied while still wearing contact lenses. In November 2022, she opted for £55 Russian lashes, not expecting the consequences of keeping her contacts in during the procedure. Initially, she experienced itchiness but soon, her left eye became red and swollen. Despite receiving drops to relieve pain from a local chemist, her condition worsened rapidly.
Within days, her cornea turned grey and she lost vision in her left eye. Barrett rushed to St Helier Hospital and during the treatment, doctors determined that it was corneal ulcer. While the exact cause was not known, Lillie believes that bacteria from the lash procedure may have triggered the infection.
As per LadBible, she explained, “Six hours after my appointment, my eye started to react. It felt like something was scratching my eye so I took my contact lenses out and put my glasses on. Overnight, my eye wouldn’t stop watering and I thought it was just my allergies playing up or I had contracted conjunctivitis because I had been around kids recently. I went to a chemist the next day and they said it looked like it was conjunctivitis. They gave me some eye drops and I began to use them.”
“My eye kept watering and started swelling. They became really red. For about two days, I thought it was conjunctivitis as I had yellow bits in my eye. This then stopped coming out of my eye and became stuck on my cornea. By the second or third day, I lost all my vision. Everything looked flat because I couldn’t see out of this eye. My left eye made my confidence go down a lot as people were looking at me strangely. I stopped going out as much as I used to as I was really upset about it,” Lillie Barrett added.
After going through pain, the receptionist is now warning other contact lens users to take extreme precautions. She advised people to use daily disposable contact for hygiene purposes. Barrett also urged others to take quick medical advice and regrets herself for delaying her hospital visit by two or three days. During the time, her eye remained discoloured for six months and even after almost a year and a half, her left eye has not fully recovered yet.
Initially, Lillie Barrett declined eye surgery to restore her vision due to risks associated with it. However, after speaking about her situation on TikTok, she learned about other people’s experiences whose surgery went smoothly and now, she’s considering undergoing the procedure.
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