Many have suffered a sting from a bee or wasp at some point in their life. However, few people know what it feels like when an insect bites you on the eyeball, and it is not a very good experience.

A 22-year-old boy showed up in the emergency room of a hospital in India with redness, pain and decreased vision in his left eye, where he had received a bee sting an hour earlier. Although the man had a 20/20 vision in his right eye, with his left he could only see the movements of his hands near his face.

Doctors from Kasturba Medical College in Manipal noticed a diffuse haze in his left eye due to swelling and a bee stinger embedded in his eyeball, surrounded by grime.

Bee stings directly on the cornea of the eye are rare, but when they occur there is a risk of corneal tissue and clouding fails, what is called 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 even loss of vision.

The man was treated with antibiotic eye drops and a local anesthetic before removing the stinger, according to the study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The wound was then cleaned thoroughly and closed with corneal sutures. For two more weeks, the patient took glucocorticoids, antibiotics, and eye medications to prevent inflammation, pain, and secondary infection.

After three months, the swelling of the cornea had completely subsided and the man’s vision in his left eye reached 20/40.