Doctors who thought a woman was suffering from herpes have found her symptoms were actually a result of glitter from a Christmas card entering her eye.

The 49-year-old woman was nearly blinded after complaining of a painful, reddened eye, loss of vision and swollen eyelid when she attended the ophthalmology department at the Singleton Hospital in Swansea.

According to a study published in the BMJ Case Reports journal, it was first thought a lesion discovered on the patient's cornea were caused by a herpes simplex infection.

However, under closer inspection using a powerful microscope, doctors found a shiny surface inside the lesion.

It was then the woman remembered getting glitter in her eye after it rubbed off a Christmas card.


The study said the glitter formed into a clump and caused symptoms that mimicked the symptoms of herpes.

It reminded doctors to always ask patients about a possible cause of a trauma to the eye, even if the patient's symptoms appear to be a common infection.

The report said: "The lesion may have been easily misdiagnosed as a herpetic simplex infection by non-specialists for which treatment would have been topical antiviral ointment instead of removal and antibiotics."