glitter

A salutary tale to bear in mind for next Christmas. This story tells us:

A woman was nearly blinded by a Christmas card when a piece of glitter worked its way into her eyeball.

The 49-year-old was referred to an eye casualty department by her GP after suffering a painful, red eye, loss of vision and swollen eyelid.

An initial examination by a doctor at the ophthalmology department of Singleton Hospital in Swansea spotted a lesion on the patient’s cornea and suspected it to be caused by a herpes simplex infection, according to a case study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

But when the lesion was examined by the ophthalmic registrar under a powerful microscope, a shiny surface was spotted inside.

The patient then remembered getting glitter in her eye when it rubbed off a Christmas card.