A student suspected of being permanently high on drugs was actually suffering from chronic eye infection, which she believes was linked to living in halls.
Macey Jean Scholten had been staying in campus accommodation for just one month when she started experiencing irritating and unsightly symptoms.
The 19-year-old tried everything from antibiotics to steroid eye drops but the infections kept coming back.
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She says teachers and peers believed the unsightly symptoms were a sign of her taking drugs.
The post about her experience, uploaded to TikTok, has been viewed five million times and has over 280,000 likes.
“Many teachers and students thought that I was high most of the time, which was not the case since I do not take drugs of any kind,” Macey told Need To Know.
“Sometimes my eyes would be irritated and inflamed and other times they would be super gunky.
“It would go away for a couple weeks at a time but always come back.
“It made it hard to attend class because my eyes were super sensitive and the fluorescent lights in lecture halls made my eyes tired.”
Macey made all the changes she could think of – from washing her pillow case once a week to throwing out all of her makeup.
She wears contact lenses but would always take them out at night.
But the issue persisted.
It was only after moving out of campus accommodation that she claims her eyes immediately improved.
Macey, from New Albany, Ohio, US, said: “I never fully found out what was causing it but I’ve had many people reach out to me online and I think it could’ve been mould since it hasn’t happened once I moved out of that building.”
TikTokers commented to share their own similar experiences and weighed in on what they thought was the cause.
One user said: “ITS MOLD!!! This happens to me too!”
Another wrote: “THIS HAPPENED TO ME every class I went to people thought I was high out of my mind.”
“This is a canon event I swear,” wrote a third user.
Someone else said: “Ok but like why does this happen.”
“My friend had this exact same thing going on her first year of college. They eventually found mold in the vent system in the dorms,” said another user.
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