A man holds a contact lens up to his eye. In Britain, a 67-year-old woman was unaware she had 27 contact lenses on one eye. Photo by Ken Hurst/UPI/Shutterstock

July 16 (UPI) -- A British woman had 27 contact lenses on her eye and didn't know about it, doctors said.

The 67-year-old woman reportedly believed that she was experiencing discomfort in her eye due to dry eye or old age.


"None of us have ever seen this before," specialist trainee ophthalmologist, Rupal Morjaria, told Optometry Today. "It was such a large mass. All the 17 contact lenses were stuck together. We were really surprised that the patient didn't notice it because it would cause quite a lot of irritation while it was sitting there."

After removing the first 17 lenses, doctors found ten more under the patient's eyelid.

The patient had been wearing disposable contact lens for 35 years but had not been going to an eye doctor for regular check-ups.

"In this day and age, when it is so easy to purchase contact lenses online, people become lax about having regular check ups," Morjaria said.

The doctors wrote about the incident in the BMJ to boost public awareness about eye health.

"Contact lenses are used all the time, but if they are not appropriately monitored we see people with serious eye infections that can cause them to lose their sight," Morjaria said.