A Strange Eye Problem After COVID-19: A Doctor's Case Study

What is it about?

This is a story about a patient who got a weird eye problem after having COVID-19. It's called neuropathic corneal pain, which basically means eye pain caused by nerve issues. Who was the patient? A 27-year-old woman who was healthy before getting COVID-19. Five months after she recovered from COVID, she started having problems with her eyes. What were her symptoms? Both of her eyes hurt Her eyes became super sensitive to light What did the doctors find? When they looked at her eyes, everything seemed normal on the surface. But when they used a special microscope to look really closely, they saw: Tiny unusual nerve growths Special cells that show inflammation Activated cells in the clear part of her eye They also tested her tears and found high levels of certain chemicals that show her eye nerves were irritated. How did they treat her? They gave her eye drops with a medicine called flurometholone for 6 weeks. Did it help? Yes! After the treatment: The tiny nerve growths got smaller There were fewer of those special inflammation cells The irritating chemicals in her tears decreased She felt better - her burning feeling and light sensitivity improved from being really bad (70-80% bothersome) to somewhat better (50% bothersome) Why is this important? It shows that COVID-19 might cause eye problems even months after you've recovered from the virus. Doctors who specialize in eyes and nerves should be aware of this possibility.

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Photo by CDC on Unsplash

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

Why is it important?

COVID infection may have long lasting effects in the eye

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