Contact lens lost in woman's eye for 28 years

Aug. 16 (UPI) -- A team of doctors in Britain performed surgery on a woman with a swollen eyelid and found the cause -- a contact lens that had been in her eye for 28 years.

Doctors Sirjhun Patel, Lai-Ling Tan and Helen Murgatroyd said in a report published on BMJ Case Reports that the 42-year-old woman suffered swelling just below her left eyebrow and the cause was thought to be a cyst that steadily grew over a six month period.

The doctors performed surgery to remove the cyst and discovered it contained a rigid gas permeable contact lens, which the woman said she had not worn in decades.

"It was later revealed that the patient experienced childhood trauma while wearing RGP contact lenses 28 years previously," the authors wrote. "The patient assumed that the RGP lens fell out and was lost; however, it can be inferred that the lens migrated into the eyelid and resided there asymptomatically for 28 years."