Blepharitis - Suffering

[HuskerShark]

Hey everybody,

 

I am wondering if anyone on this board has blepharitis and/or has any ideas on how to make it not flame up so bad? It is a problem with the oil glands underneath my eyes not working right. It is a chronic issue I have had for a few years now, and basically, underneath my eyes gets all red and puffy, and I experience a great deal of discomfort as a result. My eyes feel dry and irritated, and it pretty much makes my couple of days miserable.

 

I try to stay on top of it. I normally put vaseline or Neosporin on my eyes before I go to bed, and recently, I had been experiencing some success with putting a heating pad over my eyes when I sleep. It didn't work this time, though. I've tried hot packs, eye drops, rinsing my eyes with water, and anything I can try to do to get it taken care of, but it just doesn't work.

 

Does anybody else suffer from this? Or anybody who knows something about it that may help? I am going to the doctor today to see what they can do for me, but I'm not sure how that is going to go considering I've been through this process before. Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks!

[StPaulHusker]

I have/had this issue several years ago. I was in my late teens to early 20's. I did the Vaseline on the eyes as well. They also told me to use baby shampoo to wash my eyes.

 

It was pretty helpful. I can't say that I remember a time in the last 15-20 years that I had any major reoccurrence. But then again, I didn't have quite the trouble you did either. Sounds bad.

 

Good luck with it.

[C N Red]

Find your nearest Optometrist, but make sure it's one in a private practice, not in a corporate one like Walmart, etc. Private practice Optometrists tend to be able to spend more time with you which it sounds like you will probably need.

 

Blepharitis is a chronic condition and treating it is a marathon, not a sprint. You can quell it at times and it will be good for awhile but won't go away for long. To get things precisely diagnosed and treated you will need to find a good Optometrist and it's going to take some time and patience to really truly get it under control so you can enjoy very long stretches of time with relief.

 

Going to have to treat the underlying inflammation/infectious condition. Also you want to make sure it's not Demodex(parasitic mite) as that is treated differently. Blepharitis can be treated many ways depending on its severity from steroid eye drops, to Nsaid eye drops, different eye drop formulations(usually ones with lipid layer support), warm compresses, meibomian gland expression, doxycycline, lid hygiene(like foaming lid scrubs), Lipiflow(a very cool new way to expess meibomian glands but fairly expensive, but relief is many times said to last many months), etc.

 

Basically, it's a tough thing to get control of and will take some time and patience. Like I said, just find a good Optometrist(ask family or friends if don't know one yourself) and get plan started.

 

Like I tell many people, you only have two eyes, and could you imagine not being able to use even just one if you are currently binocular? Try walking around for a day with a patch on one eye and see what you think. People will go to the dentist twice a year and spend a lot of money on, no offense to any dentists, things that are at least somewhat replaceable. But people just ignore their eyes until they start bothering them and many times it's too late to help them by that point.

 

Don't ignore your eyes people, you only have 2 of them, and could you imagine losing one or losing vision in one of them? Sorry, kinda got on the soap box there.

[HuskerShark]

I went to the eye doctor yesterday after leaving work early because I felt like crap. As it turns out, my eyes had an allergic reaction to something... Very interesting considering I didn't know I was allergic to anything... So a 1 oz. tube of steroid cream and $60 later, I feel great. Once the allergic reaction is all cleared up, I will have to figure out how to deal with my blepharitis.