'I fell asleep wearing contacts and now can't see – flesh eating parasites ate my eye'

dailystar.co.uk:

READ MORE: 'I'm proud to flaunt my stoma bag but TikTok keeps labelling my videos as sexual'In his seven years of wearing contact lenses, Mike was no stranger to getting the odd eye infection or 'pink eye' if he forgot to take them out.But he never thought he would be diagnosed with acanthamoeba keratitis - a rare flesh eating parasite that is feeding away at his right eye.He can no longer work, or resume his university studies, and has been sitting in almost complete darkness for more than 50 days since that dreaded 40 minute nap on December 19th 2022.

Mike spoke to us wearing dark sunglasses on video call in a blacked out room only dimly lit by the computer screen - and shared that darkness has become his new reality. "In my bedroom I have the hurricane shutters up and all the lights blacked out," Mike exclusively told Daily Star. "It goes from doing all these activities with these kids, playing around and teaching them something to I couldn’t even watch the Super Bowl on my phone - it’s rough.“My family are great, my mum has been taken time off work but I can’t even hang out in the living room with her.

My family have been really supportive financially.“It’s very very weird not being able to see people. You don’t want people to feel bad for you but at the same time you want to be living like a 21-year-old who is in college."Although Mike prides himself on being mentally strong and "proud" of his pain tolerance, nothing could have prepared him for the physical pain he has endured.“I could not explain one pain like this in my life," Mike candidly shared. "The pain is more from the back of my eye, all the way up [from the back of my head] and goes down [to the front].“It’s like a constant shock, it’s a constant pain.