Can a contact go behind my eye? Can you transplant a whole eye?

Check out this interesting article about eyes: http://mentalfloss.com/article/563242/parts-of-the-eye-facts

The article addresses some common misconceptions, such as “Can a contact get lost behind my eye”….spoiler alert, the answer is no. Contacts can move away from where they are designed to sit (the cornea) and become lodged in the conjunctival fornix, this is the little pouch of tissue formed under your eyelid. If you feel like a contact is stuck in your eye, dry using some lubricating drops and look under your upper eyelid.

Another good tidbit, that we are happy to see explained in the lay press, is that the length of your eye has a lot to do with determining your refractive error (glasses prescription) and ultimately how well you can see without glasses. Near-sighted people typically have eyes on the longer side, while far-sighted people often have shorter eyes. This is an important metric for a cataract surgeon to know when performing cataract surgery because eyes of various lengths can behave differently during surgery.

Perhaps the most interesting point in the article was the final one (Dr. Potthoff hadn’t even heard about this!)….a team of researchers in Pittsburgh is hoping to transplant whole eyes by 2026! That seems like an ambitious (but no doubt worthy) goal given the amazingly complex connections that the optic nerve makes with the brain, but hopefully they can do it!