LONDON: Doctors at Solihull hospital in the West Midlands thought it was another routine cataract surgery for a 67-year-old woman, who has been experiencing discomfort in her eyes, but soon realized it was more than that.

Richard Crombie, a consultant anesthetist at the hospital, was beginning to numb the patient’s right eye for surgery when he found, stuck under the upper eyelid, “a hard mass of 17 contact lenses bound together by mucus”.

Doctors later found 10 more lenses in the same eye.

The case was so bizarre doctors sought to publish the findings at the British Medical Journal (BMJ), one of the most of the influential general medicine journals in the world, to illustrate the importance of regular optometry checkups, especially for those who buy contact lenses online.

The experts wrote: “The patient had worn monthly disposable lenses for 35 years. She had poorer vision in the right eye and deep-set eyes, which might have contributed to the unusually large number of retained foreign bodies.”

“She said she had not attended regular optical appointments. She had no idea any of the lenses she’d used had even disappeared.”

Rupal Morjaria, a specialist trainee in ophthalmology, said: “None of us have ever seen this before.”

“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.”

“She was quite shocked. She thought her previous discomfort was just part of old age and dry eye.”

An occasional lens stuck under an eyelid was not unheard of, but “finding this many lenses stuck in someone’s eye is exceedingly rare,” according to Henry Leonard, an officer with London’s Association of Optometrists.