Turning a blind eye to lens danger

By Alanah May Eriksen

A local optometrist's warning that novelty contact lenses can prove fatal won't stop Aisha Pachoud from wearing them.

The 18-year-old sales assistant at Skin Graft Leather and Lace wears "devil" and "cat eye" lenses when she goes out.

"They're pretty freaky. I like freaking people out. My friend has UV bright pink ones and man, they're awesome."

The Ministry of Health is considering regulating the sale of novelty lenses following the blinding of an Auckland man. The 24-year-old developed an infection in his cornea after wearing a pair of borrowed novelty lenses for three days straight and was left blind. The man had worn the lenses simply for fun.

Rotorua optometrist Tony Bland of Visique McClelland Optometrists, where novelty lenses retail for between $30 and $100 a pair, sees two or three people a year with eye infections from wearing the lenses. He has not seen anybody yet who has suffered long term damage.

"I haven't heard of anyone else going blind from the lenses, but I'm sure there are some cases.

"The infection can go further than the cornea, right through the eye which is close to the brain, and can potentially be life-threatening."

Mr Bland said the novelty contacts could be worn as long as people took them out and cleaned them each night.

"The idea is to give your eye a bit of a rest. Contact lenses are fine, but when you buy them off the internet or get them from a friend, you miss out on that information telling you how to care for them properly."

He said that without the proper instructions, it was easy to miss signs of infection and the condition could deteriorate until it was too late.

Aisha regularly cleans her lenses and never wears them to bed. She said the man who went blind was "stupid" and it was his own fault.

"What did he expect? It's common sense. He would've known what he was doing was bad."

Skin Graft Leather and Lace owner David Young said the store gave instructions when selling lenses and imposed an R16 age limit, but "people abuse everything. You say `don't drink and drive' but they'll do it".