Thursday, July 2, 2015

Eye, Eye, Eye!

 

blepharitis-eye-stye-1408691349-111faedf Last week I got something in my right eye. 

It hurt like blue blazes, it just wouldn’t quit, and it caused tears by the gallon to pour down my face.  After carefully cleaning the eye, we finally put a patch over it and taped it shut for the rest of the day.  When I removed the patch about eight hours later, it felt OK – I thought everything was fine.

Then, the day before yesterday, it came back. 

I was able to get an emergency appointment with an ophthalmologist yesterday afternoon.  He told me I was suffering from meibomian gland blepharitis.  That’s a multisyllabic Latin term designed to make the doctor sound smarter than the patient.  It describes a symptom, not a disease.  Basically it just means that the oil glands in your eyelashes aren’t working quite right, and you’re building up a lot of crud on  your eyelids.

The most common causes are contaminated eye makeup (don’t use any) and dirty contact lenses (don’t wear them) but in my case the doctor said my problem was due to allergies.

He prescribed some eye drops that contain a steroid, and a foam to use to scrub the excess crap from my eyelids.  The drops helped almost immediately.  I’m not back to normal, but it’s a lot better.

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