Help - contact lens stuck!

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I bashed my eye last night and now my contact lens is stuck up inside my eyelid somewhere and it's all puffed up and swollen. I'm pretty sure I can still feel it, though it's all irritated and weepy now having poked and massaged my eyes for ages.

I've just been to the optician who stained my eye yellow but couldn't find it either and told me to come back later after icing it so the swelling goes down.

She just said "don't worry, if it's in there we'll find it" but what will they have do if she still can't find it??

😬 Is it a soft or hard lense? Has it sucked itself to your eyelid?

Can you try a load of eye drops and more massaging?

www.allaboutvision.com/contacts/faq/stuck-in-eye.htm

I pull mine into the tightest slit and blink repeatedly.
Soft lenses.

I'll bet money that the lens fell out when you bashed your eye and it's your poking around that got your eye swollen up inside.

There's nowhere for the lens to go. If you can't find it and the optician can't find it, it's not in your eye.

I did this once, convinced my contact lens was stuck in my eye, and pulled out my cornea with two finger nails. I can't describe the pain that followed.

Soft daily lens - Accuvue Moist (sorry for using the dreaded M word) so very thin. But still it's never got stuck so firmly before. It must be really far up because the optician had a really good rummage and couldn't see even the edge.

Oh bloody hell cote 😱 I will stay far away from my eyeball!!!

Ok so I will try all these suggestions, and if the optician says this afternoon that it's not there I will just have to trust her? I swear I can feel something up there but now wondering if my eyeball is gaslighting me...

My dad has been convinced several times he has a hard lens stuck in his eye but the optician said no . I feel your pain - I have been wearing lenses since I was 12 and my daughter who I as 11 got them a year ago and between us we've had some experiences. I pulled her eyelid out as a PP described and that got it out. I think if the optician can't find it then it's not there but if it is the eye should work it out on its own in the end. Good luck - I hope it's ok!

I thought I'd lost one and it had fallen out. I was trying to grip my eyeball! That was sore for a few days

I had one get stuck round the back of my eye. I thought it must have fallen out as it was hours but at the end of the day it suddenly popped out.

Stop touching your eye. Keep blinking instead.

Keep blinking and using eye drops - do not rub or poke at your eye any more.

@CoteDAzur If you can't find it and the optician can't find it, it's not in your eye - not quite true I'm afraid...

I lost half a contact lens recently - I rubbed my eye soon after putting my lens in, and must have ripped it, but didn't realise. Went out for a run and half way round my run part of the lens fell out. I could clearly see it wasn't a whole lens. I didn't rub/touch my eye, but at the end of my run went straight to the nearest optician who had a very good look around (inc using the yellow dye) but couldn't see it, even though I could still feel it.
Next day I could still feel it so went to my own optician who had a good look (+ yellow dye) and was ADAMANT it wasn't there. I could still feel it though.
3 days later, at the end of a massage (so had been lying face down for an hour - maybe this is relevant, maybe not) the other half of my lens came out.

So just because the optician says it's not there, it doesn't mean that's the case. On both occasions, I was in there for c20 mins whilst they had a very thorough look. It was complicated slightly by the fact it was just part of a lens, which meant it didn't sit naturally on my eye the way a whole lens will tend to do. I was using saline drops to try and get it moving - whether that actually did anything or not, I have no idea.

I second what everyone else is saying - don't rub your eye, use drops, blink lots and keep a very close eye on it. If you can still feel it, it may well be there somewhere and you'll have to go back and get them to have another look if it doesn't make an appearance of its own accord.

Optical professional here. If the optician couldn't see it it's highly likely its not there - it's very common to think it's stuck/slid to the back of the eye but it can't go to the very back of the eye.
Your eye will be sore and inflamed from the knock and all the prodding and poking and the foreign body sensation can stay for a while.
A saline wash will help - either at home or back at the opticians.

@LikeLadyGodiva - that's what 2x opticians told me... but the fact it appeared 3 days later meant it definitely was there all along. It's made me quite wary of lenses since - I could clearly feel it (and not always in the same place, so it wasn't a local irritation), but it's worrying that there can be something relatively big in your eye that simply can't be seen.

At my optician now they make you sign a disclaimer every time you go in for something contact lens related that says you definitely won't ever wear them when they might get wet (swimming, in the shower etc), so I was somewhat paranoid about the infection you can get related to this.

Could it have been lying face down which made a difference to mine coming out in the end, or is that likely a pure coincidence?

Thanks for the advice all - I have stopped touching it, I've been lying down with a bag of frozen peas on my eye. It is feeling better, but maybe that's because I can't feel much at all now it's all numb!

I'm really hoping it's already fallen out but maybe I need to book myself a massage tomorrow to encourage it to appear