2. Contact Lenses
You might think I am about to launch off on some story here about people's contact lenses getting dislodged and swimming round into the back of the eye socket. Well, I'm not. That's impossible. I was actually talking about granulomatous amoebic encephalitis, (GAE). This is a disease you have probably not even heard of, yet paying attention to how you get it could save your life. Lesson one don't wash your contact lenses in water. Use the proper cleaning stuff instead. So, what does GAE do? Nothing nice as it turns out. It gets into the central nervous system, presenting itself as any number of classic brain and nervous system conditions. That's why it's hard to detect, but the tell-tale sign, post mortem I am afraid to say, is the presence of pathogenic amoebas. Found all over the world, these are tiny organic species four of which are known to cause disease in humans: Balamuthia mandrillaris, Acanthamoeba, Sappinia pedata and Naegleria fowleri. Acanthamoeba is the one associated with contact lenses. It is transmitted by washing contact lenses in tap water. Personally, I wouldn't take comfort from the fact that statistics show only a very few people anywhere in the world have presented with the condition. This one might turn out to be one of those cases where up until now no one was actually looking. It could be that it is far more prevalent than the historical data suggests. I write 'post mortem' too, because even with treatment GAE infection is often fatal.
Paul Hammans
Hello, I'm Paul Hammans, terminal 'Who' obsessive, F1 fan, reader of arcane literature about ideas and generalist scribbler. To paraphrase someone much better at aphorisms than I: I strive to write something worth reading and when I cannot do that I try to do something worth writing. I have my own Dr Who oriented blog at http://www.exanima.co.uk
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