Anonymous wrote:Thanks, everyone. It turned out the lens wasn’t there anymore after all and she was trying to remove her actual eye (!). So kudos to PPs who suspected this! I reached her eye doctor who talked me through the options to have her try, and camp medical helped her as well. She was really panicking and crying, and my being six hours away started to make me panic, too. Thanks to everyone for their responses and suggestions.

I'm glad it turned out okay!

Thanks, everyone. It turned out the lens wasn’t there anymore after all and she was trying to remove her actual eye (!). So kudos to PPs who suspected this! I reached her eye doctor who talked me through the options to have her try, and camp medical helped her as well. She was really panicking and crying, and my being six hours away started to make me panic, too. Thanks to everyone for their responses and suggestions.

These things happen. Here is some advice:
https://www.lensdirect.com/blog/contact-lenses/tips-for-removing-contacts-stuck-in-my-eye/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw54iXBhCXARIsADWpsG9XMOQDJYh-iyEsba9qvBgOSKpB0kd3JCc8hmF-FbdXpORu9XxwfvgaApnVEALw_wcB

This has happened to me many, many times. It is not something to drive and pick her up early from sleep away camp for (WTF??). It will work its way out. Once, I took out a contact and TWO came out of that eye. Not sure what even happened there. But I'm still alive and have both of my eyeballs.

You've gotten lots of suggestions for what she can do, I nodded along to most of them. You can usually feel where it is and where you need to pull eyelid/ blink/ etc to get it to move. It's not a medical emergency.

This just happened to me within the last 5 years. Worn contacts for 35? years.
Definitely keep flushing the eye. If she pulls her lid up, she may see it.

I've been wearing contact lenses for 30 years (and dailies for 15 of them probably) and this has never happened to me. Did she sleep in them for multiple nights or something?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:May sound stupid…but make sure she’s actually trying to get her contact out and not her cornea (i.e., the contact already fell out). Happened to me a couple times.

+more times than I care to admit

Same here, including an epic bachelorette weekend when I practically gouged my own eye out trying to remove a contact that I found the next morning stuck to the bathroom floor.

Anonymous wrote:May sound stupid…but make sure she’s actually trying to get her contact out and not her cornea (i.e., the contact already fell out). Happened to me a couple times.

+more times than I care to admit

This happens to me A LOT. Give it time. Saline only makes it slippery and doesn’t help me. Let the contact reeet from under. Don’t look into a lower mirror. It messes with the eyeball. Wait until it’s not moist on top and then try to remove it. It’s also possible it popped out. It won’t stay in forever. She will be ok.

Anonymous wrote:May sound stupid…but make sure she’s actually trying to get her contact out and not her cornea (i.e., the contact already fell out). Happened to me a couple times.

Good point. Once I thought it was stuck but the eye doctor looked and it had popped out without me noticing at some point

May sound stupid…but make sure she’s actually trying to get her contact out and not her cornea (i.e., the contact already fell out). Happened to me a couple times.

Here’s what I do.

Pull upper lid out and down over over lid and hold while making a blinking motion with your eyes (i mean, of course you can’t actually blink in that position, but blink as best as you can).
This usually brings anything in my eye to the inner corner where I can reach it.