Receptionist, 22, shares horrifying video of her eye changing colour after false eyelashes left her blind for months

A RECEPTIONIST was left blind for months after getting lashes fitted.

Lillie Barrett, now 22, began experiencing an itchy left eye in November 2022 after getting a set of £55 Russian lashes fitted while wearing her contact lenses.

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Horrifying footage shows Lillie’s cornea turning a hazy grey as she claims she was left blind in this eye and not able to see in 3D out of the other.

The woman from South London, who was 20 at the time, said her eye started to water just a few hours after her appointment.

By the next morning, it was still streaming, so Lillie decided to visit a chemist who gave her eye drops to treat her conjunctivitis.

Just two days later, her symptoms had got worse.

Theeye began to swell, and yellow gunk started to build up on her cornea, Lillie claims she lost all vision in her left eye.

She was about to drive herself to the doctor when she realised she could barely see properly using just one eye.

“I didn’t have any 3D vision,” she explained

“Everything looked flat because I couldn’t see from this [left] eye.”

Doctors discovered that Lille had an ulcer on her cornea, which is when an open sore develops on the outer layer of the eye.

The condition is more common among contact lens users when the lens rubs against the eyeball and causes damage, the NHS says.

I can now see much more than I could, but my vision is still bad

Lillie Barrett

Lillie claims someone at the eye department told her she wasn’t going to get my vision back unless she went through with the surgery.

“I broke into tears as I was so shocked at what had happened,” she said.

After being prescribed eyedrops and pain relief, Lillie was discharged from the hospital but had to return for checkups until May 2023.

She said her left eye made her “confidence go down” as people would look at her “strangely”.

“I stopped going out as much as I used to, and I was upset about it,” she said.

She claims her eye remained discoloured for six months and says her vision gradually started to return.

Despite this, Lillie claims she has still not fully regained sight in her left eye almost a year and a half after the infection.

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Lillie said: “My vision started to come back slowly after using the eyedrops and having hospital checkups.

“The colour of my eye was still really bad in January 2023, and you couldn’t see the black part of my pupil. My eye was like this for roughly six or seven months.

“By April 2023, the colour of my eye had returned quite a lot. You can hardly notice it unless you look really closely.

“I can now see much more than I could, but my vision is still bad.

“I can see shadows and people when they’re in front of me but that is only if I close one eye.

“If both eyes are open it makes it harder to see.”

Surgery

Lillie says she has been offered surgery to help restore her vision but initially declined this after hearing about the risks that could come with the operation.

But after recently posting about her lens horror on TikTok, she says she may reconsider going under the knife as other users shared the surgery success stories.

Lillie said, “The surgery was to help me regain some of my vision by working on my cornea, but I didn’t take it as they said there was a risk my eye could go back to square one again [and I had been making progress with my sight].

“Now I’ve seen people’s comments on TikTok about how the surgery worked well for them, I think I would consider getting it done to regain some more of my vision.”