Woman Experiences Weird Sensation in Her Eye. It Was Eye Worms.

Photo: Abby Beckley, 28. Source: CNN.

When a woman felt some discomfort in her eye, she figured that she should have a closer look in case an eyelash went amiss. But, what she saw shocked her. As she leaned into the mirror, she saw something move in her eye. 

In her moment of shock, she reluctantly went to remove it, and pulled out a translucent worm that was almost a half an inch long.

Abby Beckley, who is 28 years old, and explains this odd situation further, "I looked at it, and it was moving. And then it died within about five seconds."

However, there wasn't only one - she found almost fifteen, and she couldn't take them all out at once, but over a period of three weeks.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a case report on her condition, as it is extremely unusual. Richard Bradbury, the lead author of the report and team leader for the CDC's Parasite Diagnostics and Biology Laboratory, and he explained the rarity of the situation, "This is only the 11th time a person has been infected by eye worms in North America ... but what was really exciting is that it is a new species that has never infected people before. It's a cattle worm that somehow jumped into a human." 

How did she get them?

Beckley had grown up in Brookings, Oregon on a ranch that had lots of access to animals - from cattle to horses. She always loved being outside, and she always had a massive desire to travel. Fortunately, she had the opportunity in July of 2016 to combine her two desires by being a part of a noncommercial salmon fishing boat in Alaska. However, only two weeks into her experience, she began to feel the symptoms.

She explained the sensation, "my left eye just got really irritated and red, and my eyelid was droopy. I was getting migraines too, and I was like, 'what is going on?'"

The symptoms continued for almost a week when she finally reached land again. Once on land, she found a mirror and initially looked closely, but she was not even imagining it to be what she would find.

She says, "I pulled down the bottom of my eye and noticed my skin looked weird there. So I put my fingers in with a sort of a plucking motion, and a worm came out! I was just in shock, I ran into my crewmate Allison's room, and I said, 'I need you to see this! I just pulled a worm out of my eye!'"

She thought it had been a salmon worm, which would make sense given that she had begun feeling the symptoms while on the ship. However, it didn't seem to be the case. She researched others who had found salmon worms in their eye via the internet, but couldn't find a single case. She went to the ophthalmologist and doctor, but they also didn't offer much help.

Read on to learn more about this Abby Beckley's strange case and how she is overcoming it.