I recently had a young 33-year-old male present at my practice with severe redness of both of his eyes. He was moaning and groaning and was complaining of severe pain. We decided to give him immediate attention. On examination it was evident that his eye lids were swollen. The insides of his eyes were burgundy red and it appeared as if there was some bleeding.

He also complained of not being able to see properly and there was evidence of corneal damage. We now had to ascertain if the condition was due to an allergy, virus, fungus or something else. We spent many hours trying to find out what he had. All tests were inconclusive.

Something was not quite right but we could not quite put a finger on it. I decided to question him some more. We went over every detail…his family history, his social history, work history and slowly a pattern started to emerge. We felt he was hedging. When we told him that he would most likely go blind, his girlfriend who was there with him broke down and confessed that he had inflicted the injury on himself.

Eventually he admitted that he was trying to get away from work so he inflicted the condition upon himself. We were shocked. Let’s face it, sometimes we do not feel like going to work or have other pressing things to do……but this?

This is what the young man did. He rubbed soap into his eyes for several minutes, then used a red eye liner to colour the inner part of his eye lids. He then cut up some red peppers and squeezed the juice into his eyes causing them to swell. He rubbed the eye continuously for several minutes until they became sore and finally he rubbed salt into his eyes. Unfortunately, due to this gross misconduct, this young man suffered a chemical burn and may develop scarring of the corneal tissues of his eyes. He may require surgery. It is doubtful that he will ever recover full visual acuity.

“Remember to keep an eye on your eyes”

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Dr Ken Onu

Consultant Ophthalmologist at Beachmont Eye institute/Eyes R Us

Dr Ken Onu is the CEO and Founder of the Beachmont Eye institute/Eyes R Us. Apart from being a passionate Eye Doctor he is a Public Speaker and Author. He writes frequently on and offline on Eye Care and his other passion: Transformational Growth

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