Working as nurse, Katie Carrington was used to helping people who had put their health at risk with careless mistakes – but it didn’t make her immune to making similar missteps.
The mum-of-four, 36, was left blind in one eye after she got into the habit of leaving her daily contact lenses in for up to two weeks at a time – and last summer her shortsighted shortcut caught up with her.
She said: ‘One night in August 2025, I was lying in bed and my eyes were pounding and streaming.
‘The next morning, I woke up in unbearable pain – it was worse than giving birth.
‘I couldn’t see at all in my right eye. Doctors didn’t know if my sight would come back.
‘I was so depressed, thinking I wouldn’t get to see my kids growing up.’
Ms Carrington, from Romford, Essex, was told she needed glasses at age 16 and started wearing daily disposable lenses age 17.
She got into a bad habit of not taking them out after nights out and was soon wearing the same lenses for weeks at a time.
Katie Carrington was left blind in one eye after leaving in her contact lenses for weeks
She was left blind in her right eye for five weeks
Every few months, Ms Carrington would lose a contact lens round the back of her eye, and would fish it out herself with her fingers.
She said: ‘I was really stupid – I misused my contact lenses.
‘At first, I would go to parties and not take them out at night, but then I started wearing them for excessive amounts of time.
‘I’d be terrible sometimes and wear them for a week or two at a time, I’d wait until my eyes were really dry and then take them out and change them.
‘I did it out of convenience. My eyesight is pretty bad, so I just hated the fact that I’d wake up and couldn’t see.
‘Looking back now, I don’t know why I did it.’
But that night in August, she could tell that something had gone seriously wrong.
As she lay in bed, her eyes started to pound and water began streaming out of them.
She had to wear an eyepatch and take a month off of work
Doctors were not sure if her sight would return
Ms Carrington didn’t think much of this, but took her lenses out and then tried to get to sleep.
Her eyes continued to stream throughout the night, and in the morning, she woke up in ‘unbearable’ pain, which she described as being worse than childbirth.
She was unable to see out of her right eye at all and felt like she was being ‘stabbed in the eye’. After wrapping a scarf around her head, she got her husband to drive her to Moorfields Eye Hospital in London.
She was left unable to see at all in her right eye, and doctors were unsure whether her sight would come back.
Doctors scraped her eyeballs to test for microorganisms that could have caused the blindness, which she described as ‘traumatic’.
They explained that a tiny bit of bacteria could have got into her contact lenses, causing an infection, which had led to blindness.
Ms Carrington was made to wear an eyepatch, and was told that it was unclear whether her eyesight would come back or not.
For 48 hours, she had to give herself eye drops every hour, even during the night, and had weekly check-ups at Moorfields, to see if her condition had improved.
She was depressed during the time she was unable to work
The stressed mother took four weeks off work to recover, during which time she felt ‘depressed’, as she felt like losing her sight had taken away her independence.
She considered leaving work, as she couldn’t see to drive there, and began panicking about how she would adapt to being partially sighted.
Day to day life and running the family home became incredibly difficult, and she would feel like it was her fault when she would spill things on the floor, as she couldn’t see what she was doing.
She said: ‘Even though it was just one eye, I felt like all my independence had been taken away from me.
‘Daily tasks became so hard. When I was making a bottle for my baby I would spill it everywhere, and I had to focus so hard to cut things up in the kitchen.’
After five weeks, to Ms Carrington’s relief, her sight returned to normal.
Doctors said the blindness was caused by bacteria lodged in the eye behind the contact lenses, which led to an infection.
Thankfully, her sight gradually improved, and after five weeks, her vision returned to normal.
She has vowed to never wear contact lenses again
Ms Carrington is now urging others to think twice before leaving contact lenses in for extended periods of time.
Doctors have told her she could wear contact lenses again, but she said it’s ‘not worth it’.
‘If one person learns from this that you shouldn’t leave contact lenses in, then I feel like I’ve made a difference’, she said.
‘Thank the Lord I can see again, but I will never wear contacts again.
‘It was my fault and I take full accountability, but I didn’t know the risks associated with them.
‘I urge contact lens wearers to read up about the risks. I thought it would never happen to me, because I got away with it for so long, but now I’m focused on looking after myself.’
