http://www.earthtimes.org...s-eye.html

Sydney - Doctors at a Sydney hospital used saline solution to remove a leech that had attached itself to an Australian woman's eyeball, news reports said Monday. "It was tucked up underneath her upper eyelid," emergency room doctor Toby Fogg said. "Our little fellow started off at about half a centimetre and by the time we removed it, it was about 2 centimetres long. It had quite a good lunch."

The 66-year-old woman was gardening when the leech found its way into her eye.

Fogg said using tweezers was ruled out because that could have led to infection if the leech's head had lodged in the eyeball.

The doctors' report on the case was published in the journal of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine.

Fogg said the use of a saline solution was a novel approach, and is now recommended for such cases, which he said are more common than people may think.

Kitten's coming over next week. Imma check her eyeballs just in case.


How the fuck a leech get in your eye, was she gardening with her FACE???

Okay, I'm thoroughly skeeved out for the rest of the week!!

This is why I hate Gardening!

Amaxx said:

I gardened all weekend long and got not one leech in my eye.

K did they inject the saline solution into the leech or use it to flush the area the leech was feeding so it would react and release?

johnart said:

Ah yes! But You're not in Australia! Everytime I step foot in my backyard there's a chance I may be beaten savagely by a kangaroo, impaled by an echidna, poisened by a variety of venomous creepy crawlies or get an insideous leech under my eyelid!

Living Dangerously. Tonight's episode:
Gardening in Australia.

PANDURITO said:

God, I know that must have hurt. Saline is salt water!!

it what?? it found its way into her eye? exactly, how???? did it hitchhike up there? parachute in?? pretend to give an eye exam? leap onto the eyeball from a nearby koala?????

XxAxX said:

my thoughts exactly !
[Edited 4/27/09 14:34pm]

Dayclear said:

So are tears.

that's what she gets for tryna get an up close look at a leech. word to the wise: use a magnifying glass.

johnart said:

I left the leeches your bathroom

i have a leech story that outgrosses that one by miles

usedtobebliss said:

ohhhhh, I wanna hear!

KidaDynamite said:

i can't... it's just too putrid

usedtobebliss said:

So, why mention it?!

KidaDynamite said:

if you really wanna know... i'll pm you

Ahhh I Australia.

For over a year I had one of the following living in my backyard unaware. I finally figured out what my dog would be barking at on occasion at the pond and shrubs when I had it landscaped.

PanthaGirl said:

I used to have a blue-tongue lizard under my bedroom window. I saw one in the aquarium in San Francisco last week!

usedtobebliss said:

Yay!

ZombieKitten said:

LOL yah blue tongues are common and don't seem to be very timid. The lizard in my backyard was a water dragon and it was over 1 metre in length...

I had my neighbour come over to pick it up and release it back to the local creek and wild reserve.

PanthaGirl said:

yes yours is quite unusual are you in Melbourne too?

PanthaGirl said:

i'm in melbourne now but at one stage i lived in sydney and our back yard joined lane cove national park... we used to get huge lizards there... all kinds... i was a kid and loved it

usedtobebliss said:

pantha?

ZombieKitten said:

no... sorry i wasn't answering your question.... just saying

ZombieKitten said:

Yah I'm in Melbourne, I think it would have originally come from the creek/reserve which is around the corner from my home and then found it's home in my large freshwater pond and shrubs. It didn't eat any of my fish but my mexican walking fish and eel went missing... Water dragons and blue tongues are common to this state.