‘It Felt Like Glass and Knives’: Young Fitness Coach Loses Vision After Rare Eye Parasite Infection
Vivian, a 21-year-old fitness coach from Miami, Florida, never imagined that a simple night’s discomfort could change her life forever. While traveling and working remotely in Mexico, she woke in the middle of the night with sudden, stabbing pain in her right eye. “It’s the most painful thing I’ve ever gone through,” she recalls.
For two years, Vivian had worn contact lenses to correct her short-sightedness, avoiding glasses because she didn’t like the feeling. But that night, she felt an intense, unrelenting pain. “I woke up around 3 a.m., and my eye wouldn’t stop watering. I thought it would go away if I just slept it off, but I couldn’t get back to sleep because of the pain.”
At 5 a.m., desperate for relief, she rode her motorcycle to a local Urgent Care. The doctors there prescribed eye drops and sent her home, but the pain only worsened. “It felt like glass and knives were cutting my eye every 10 seconds,” Vivian says. The agony continued for weeks, and with each passing day, she began to lose vision in her right eye.
Living in a small beach town with limited medical options, Vivian visited multiple clinics. She was told at first that it was a common eye infection, then an ulcer—but the true diagnosis came only after she traveled to a larger hospital in Querétaro: acanthamoeba keratitis, a rare but serious infection caused by a parasite burrowing into the cornea.
Vivian suspects she may have contracted the parasite from a bus ride the night before her symptoms began, after touching her eyes without properly washing her hands. “It could have been on the bus or developed over time from showering or swimming with contacts,” she says.
Now back in Miami, Vivian is undergoing intensive treatment, including hourly eye drops that even wake her in the middle of the night. Her right eye remains blind, and doctors have warned she may need surgery to restore vision. “It’s very mentally exhausting,” she admits. “Sometimes I wake up and forget I can’t see, and then the pain hits me again, and I remember. It feels like I’m living an alternate life.”
Despite the ordeal, Vivian is determined to stay positive and warns others of the dangers of poor eye hygiene. “One slip-up can ruin everything,” she says. She is urging contact lens wearers to always wash their hands, avoid sleeping or swimming in lenses, and seek immediate care if eyes become red, painful, watery, sensitive to light, or blurry.
Vivian is also fundraising to cover the costs of her ongoing care. Her story is a stark reminder of how fragile eye health can be—and how a tiny parasite can change a life in an instant.
