Andrew Carthew who lost his left eye due to an infection caused by a contact lens (Picture: SWNS) 
 
 A man has lost his eye after his contact lens became infected with bacteria commonly found in tap water. 
 
 Andrew Carthew, 59, who wore prescribed lenses for five years, assumed he had conjunctivitis after waking up with a weepy eye last June. 
 
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 However, the father-of-two took himself to an emergency care unit after his eye became excruciatingly painful and sensitive to bright light. 
 
 After being initially diagnosed with an ordinary eye infection at Royal Cornwall Hospital Treliske he was given drops only to find four weeks later that the condition was far worse than originally thought. 
 
 Months of treatment failed to improve his condition and once it was found the infection had travelled to the back of his eyeball the difficult decision was made to remove it. 
 
 Andrew Carthew now wears a false eye (Picture: SWNS) 
 
 Andrew, of Wadebridge, in Cornwall, described the pain as like a toothache but across the whole side of his face. 
 
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 He said: ‘There was about six to eight weeks were all I did was lay in a darkened room with sunglasses on and the only time I ever went out was to go to hospital. 
 
 ‘You wouldn’t believe that an eye infection could be so debilitating.’ 
 
 The 59-year-old had been diagnosed with ‘Acanthamoeba Keratitis’, a bacteria which affects one in 50,000 contact lens wearers, and is commonly found in tap water, rivers and soil. 
 
 Users become at risk from infections if they clean their lenses or lens cases in tap water, or if they swim, shower or bathe while wearing their lenses. 
 
 However, Andrew did not clean his lenses in water so experts believe the disease may have been transferred via contamination on his finger. 
 
 Acanthamoeba Keratitis can lead to permanent sight loss when the parasite becomes trapped between contact lenses and the eye, but doctors were unable to identify the origin of Andrew’s much more serious infection. 
 
 The operation meant Andrew was forced to give up his work as a paramedic but he is determined to get his life back on track. 
 
 He added: ‘My consultant said that I was the first person to have lost my eye because of what happened for 15 years. 
 
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 ‘It was a gradual process, I hadn’t had any sight since it had all started, within six weeks I lost vision in that eye and I’ve never got it back. 
 
 ‘So it didn’t change a lot really, the big thing was getting over the fact you’d actually lost your eye. 
 
 The bacteria that infected Andrew’s eye can be found in tap water (Picture: Getty Images) 
 
 ‘I got a bit depressed, you try to keep upbeat but throughout the whole process I had episodes of feeling quite down about it. 
 
 ‘But in a practical way, if I didn’t have the eye removed, it could have killed me, looking at it in that sense it’s a no-brainer and I just best get on with life really.’ 
 
 He is now trying to raise awareness of the infection that typically affects contact lens wearers. 
 
 He added: ‘I’ve spoken to quite a few people who wear contact lenses and a couple of them have actually stopped wearing them after hearing what I’ve gone through. 
 
 “I think it’s made people very aware of how to clean them properly. 
 
 ‘I never swam in them or showered in them or slept in them and I never washed them in tap water, which is all the things that you shouldn’t do. 
 
 ‘I must have had a contaminated finger and rubbed my eye or put them in with a contaminated finger and the bacteria harboured in this case. 
 
 ‘I think opticians need to tell people what could happen and that infections are likely and in my case severe infections are rare but they can happen. 
 
 ‘I think people would be extra careful if they had warnings.’ 

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 Here’s a reminder to keep your contact lenses clean. A British man who lost his eye to a rare infection last year says he wants people to be more aware of the risks. 
 
 The infection’s called Acanthamoeba keratitis and it is caused by an amoeba found in ordinary tap water. While it is rare, it happens often enough to cause concern – almost always in contact lens wearers. 
 
 Andrew Carthew, 59, told several British newspapers he didn’t think the infection was severe when he first felt his eye becoming watery and irritated. 
 
 But it quickly became painful and antibiotics did not help. Neither did a cornea transplant. Surgeons removed the affected eye last November. 
 
 It’s one of the many reasons health officials say contact lens users have to be super-careful and clean. 
 
 "I never swam in them or showered in them or slept in them and I never washed them in tap water, which is all the things that you shouldn't do,” Carthew told the Bristol Post. 
 
 “I must have had a contaminated finger and rubbed my eye or put them in with a contaminated finger and the bacteria harbored in this case.” 
 
 A local eye health charity, IsightCornwall, confirmed the incident. 
 
 Shutterstock Nearly a third of the 41 million Americans who wear contact lenses has had to visit a doctor because of red or painful eyes. 
 
 It takes quick recognition and aggressive treatment to get rid of the microbe that causes the infection, ophthalmologists say. Patients may have to get their eyes scraped, with medications and disinfectants dripped into the eye every hour to save it. 
 
 “The ameba is found worldwide in the environment in water and soil. The ameba can be spread to the eyes through contact lens use, cuts, or skin wounds or by being inhaled into the lungs,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. 
 
 It caused an outbreak in at least 35 states in 2007, the CDC reported. 
 
 Symptoms include pain and redness of the eye, excessive tearing and sensitivity to light. 
 
 To avoid any eye infection, the CDC advises: 
 
 Never reuse or top off old solution. Use fresh cleaning or disinfecting solution each time lenses are cleaned and stored. 
 
 Never use saline solution or rewetting drops to disinfect lenses. Neither solution is an effective or approved disinfectant. 
 
 Be sure to clean, rub, and rinse your lenses each time you remove your lenses. Rubbing and rinsing your contact lenses will aid in removing harmful microbes and residues. 
 
 Store reusable lenses in the proper storage case. 
 
 Related: Wear contacts? The CDC says you're probably doing something wrong 
 
 The CDC says nearly a third of the 41 million Americans who wear contact lenses has had to visit a doctor because of red or painful eyes. The CDC says 90 percent of people who wear hard contact lenses admit to having occasionally rinsed them off in tap water. 

 A British man was forced to have his eye removed after a contact lens infection spiraled out of control, and now he’s sharing his story so others won’t suffer the same consequences. 
 
 Long-time paramedic Andrew Carthew, 59, wore prescription contact lenses for years and said he was always careful not to sleep or shower or swim with them in. But in June of 2015, he woke one morning with a “weepy eye,” the UK’s Daily Mail reported online. 
 
 He thought it was conjunctivitis, a common, treatable eye infection. 
 
 But the eye became painful and sensitive to bright light within a day or two, Carthew said. He ended up in the emergency room. His symptoms didn’t improve and he soon learned he had a rare infection called acanthamoeba keratitis — a serious condition caused by an amoeba. 
 
 Symptoms of acanthamoeba keratitis include: 
 
 Eye pain 
 
 
 
 Eye redness 
 
 
 
 Blurred vision 
 
 
 
 Sensitivity to light 
 
 
 
 Sensation of something in the eye 
 
 
 
 Excessive tearing 
 
 
 
 Doctors can diagnose the infection based on symptoms, or the amoeba can also be identified by a scraping of the eye or by viewing it through a process called confocal microscopy. 
 
 The infection is treated with one or more prescription medications. In Carthew’s case, antibiotics did not help, so his doctors then performed a corneal transplant. But the infection was so severe they finally had no choice but to remove his eye. 
 
 After a year in and out of medical care and adjusting to the loss of the eye, UK news outlets are reporting that Carthew is now getting the word out to help other contact lens wearers avoid the same fate. 
 
 The parasite is common in nature, where it can be found in lakes and oceans, the soil and even air. It’s also present in tap water. About 85 percent of infections occur in people wearing contacts that got contaminated. 
 
 Normally, only about one to two cases of infection per million contact lens users occur in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But between 2005 and 2007, an acanthamoeba keratitis outbreak infected at least 138 people in 35 states. 
 
 About 41 million Americans wear contact lenses, and while they are typically a safe and effective alternative to glasses, they can cause serious problems if wearers don’t follow instructions on how to care for them. 
 
 “While patients, especially younger patients, are really excited about being fitted with contact lenses, I stress to them that contact lenses are medical devices that have to be properly fitted, evaluated and that they must adhere to proper contact lens care,” Dr. Andrea Thau of the American Optometric Association (AOA), told CBS News in August when a new CDC report came out warning contact lens users to be vigilant about eye care. 
 
 Here’s what to do to avoid infections and other vision complications, according to the AOA: 
 
 Visit your eye doctor every year. 
 
 
 
 Buy your contact lenses from a trusted source. 
 
 
 
 Don’t panic if your lens is “lost” in your eye. 
 
 
 
 Don’t ever share contacts. 
 
 
 
 Never use tap water to clean and rinse lenses. 
 
 
 
 Keep your lens case clean. 
 
 
 
 No matter how tired you are, do not sleep in your contacts. 
 
 
 
 Don’t over wear your lenses. 
 
 
 
 You can’t be careful enough, as Carthew learned. A health professional himself, he said he followed contact lens cleaning guidelines, but he said that it’s possible he handled his lenses with unwashed hands at some point, which might have led to his infection.
– Andrew Carthew, a 59-year-old paramedic in Britain, woke up one day in June 2015 with a "weepy eye," the Bristol Post reports. Six weeks later, he lost sight in the eye; less than a year after that, he lost the eye completely. Now he's warning others about a little-known yet very serious danger of contact lenses. According to CBS News, Carthew, who says he always took proper care with his contact lenses, originally thought he had a common eye infection. Then came the "absolutely shocking" pain and sensitivity to light. It was like having a toothache on an entire side of his face, Metro reports. He spent weeks just lying in the dark, only leaving his house for hospital visits. He had to retire after more than 30 years as a paramedic. It turns out Carthew had Acanthamoeba keratitis, a rare infection caused by an amoeba. While the amoeba is found in lakes, soil, and more, 85% of infections happen with people wearing contact lenses that are contaminated—typically because they were worn while bathing or rinsed with tap water. In the US, Acanthamoeba keratitis usually infects just one or two contact lens wearers out of every million, but NBC News reports there was an outbreak of it in 35 states in 2007. As for Carthew, antibiotics and even a corneal transplant were ineffective. Doctors had to remove his eye before the infection reached the optic nerve, which could have been fatal. He says he wants people to start paying attention to contact lens care to make sure the same doesn't happen to them. The CDC estimates 90% of people with hard contact lenses sometimes rinse them with tap water. (Not to mention all the other gross things we do with our contact lenses.)