Here’s what happens when a bee stings you straight into your eyeball

There are few things that could really make 2020 any worse than it already is. But a rare bee sting directly to the eyeball could be one of them.

Doctors this week released an image of such a rare eye impaling. The image, appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine, also included a brief report on the patient’s condition and recovery. The details confirm that while reading this year-long horror show can sometimes feel like you get stabbed repeatedly in psychics, the real thing is actually a lot more obnoxious.

The patient was a 22-year-old man who presented to a hospital emergency department with redness, pain, and decreased vision in his left eye, who had taken a bee sting about an hour or so. early. Although the man has 20/20 vision in his right eye, he said he can only see hand movements near his face with his left eye.

On a closer look (see here), doctors reported seeing a diffuse blur in his left eye due to swelling, and – most evident – a bee stinger still protruding from his eyeball, surrounded eye grime. Specifically, the tiny spear was embedded in the man’s cornea – the transparent domed outer layer of tissue in the front of the eye that helps focus light.

Corneal ruptures with a bee sting are rare, doctors note. But when they do occur, there is a risk of corneal tissue failure and becoming cloudy (corneal decompensation). There is also the possibility of secondary glaucoma, in which the pressure inside the eye increases and causes damage to the optic nerve and loss of vision.

Doctors gave the man antibiotic eye drops and a local anesthetic before removing the stinger. They then carefully cleaned the puncture wound and closed it with corneal sutures. Finally, they gave the man two weeks of prescriptions for glucocorticoids, antibiotics, and eye medications that together tried to prevent inflammation, pain, and secondary infection.

In a relatively happy ending, a three-month follow-up visit revealed that the man’s eye had largely recovered. The corneal swelling had completely subsided and the man’s vision in his left eye was 20/40.