A 21-year-old Malaysian man recently underwent a cornea transplant after scratching his due to rubbing his eyes excessively for most of his life.

Muhammad Zabidi has suffered from allergies for as long as he can remember. As a child, he would rub his eyes until they turned red, but it wasn’t until his teenage years that this became a serious problem. At age 15, he started experiencing blurred vision in his right eye, and things only got worse as time went by. When he finally decided to see a doctor about it, he was told that he had severely scratched his cornea due to the constant eye rubbing and he now needed a new one in order to regain his vision.

“Since I was a child, I liked rubbing my eyes because I have allergies. Sometimes I rub my eyes until they turn red,” Zabidi said in a viral TikTok. “I noticed my vision starting to blur at the age of 15. It got blurrier over time. By the time I was 21, there was already a scar on my cornea.”

The young man recently underwent a cornea transplant, a procedure in which his damaged cornea was removed and replaced with a new one. He was put under general anesthesia, so there was no pain, but his recovery time was considerable. Muhammad’s doctor told him that he would be able to open his eye in a couple of months, but that it will take years to fully recover.

“Right now, my condition is stable, but my right eye still can’t open. The doctor said it might take 2 months for it to open, and it’ll be 2 years until I fully recover,” Zabidi said.

The 21-year-old’s clip went viral in his home country, with most people expressing shock that something as benign as rubbing your eye could lead to a cornea transplant, and others wishing him a speedy recovery.

In case you’re worried about your own cornea, make sure you don’t set your smartphone display brightness too high, as apparently that can damage the cornea as well.