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I was at the optometrist this morning for a check-up two weeks after starting Dexamethasone steroid drops (which I was using 4 x day).
My IOP has risen to 40 in each eye
They phoned through to the hospital for some advice - so I've now been told to stop the steroids immediately (no tapering) and I've also got to use another drop to try and reduce the pressure (can't remember the name - it's an unpreserved drop though).
I was quite calm at the time but now I'm really worried: of course about the massive pressure increase in my eyes and the possibility of optic nerve damage, and also about where on earth I go from here, with eyes that are still inflamed.
It seems I am sensitive to almost everything chemical going into my eye. For example when they put in anaesthetic drops today to do contact tonometry I reacted with what they described as 'blepharospasm' (this happened also with these same drops when I was last at the hospital - only for the consultant to say, unhelpfully, 'Well, you shouldn't be feeling anything - I've just put anaesthetic in your eyes'). Who knows if the drops I've to put in to reduce the pressure will cause even more reactions?
Is this hypersensitivity typical of ocular rosacea? I still don't have a 'diagnosis' of this. Just 'ocular surface disease', whatever that is.
One good thing that did come out of this morning was that I have been loaned a set of Blephasteam goggles to try for a few days to see if that improves my MGD, which I'm glad about as I didn't want to spend all that money on them in case they don't work for me. I'm not sure how long it will take to see if they are doing any good or not - I'll try and hang on to them for as long as I can get away with though
It's just so hard though - I feel like I don't know what to do next - everything I've been doing just seems to create more problems.
Last night I slept with my Onyix sleep mask on and I woke up to eyes that were just as dry as ever and even slightly more inflamed.
My IOP has risen to 40 in each eye
They phoned through to the hospital for some advice - so I've now been told to stop the steroids immediately (no tapering) and I've also got to use another drop to try and reduce the pressure (can't remember the name - it's an unpreserved drop though).
I was quite calm at the time but now I'm really worried: of course about the massive pressure increase in my eyes and the possibility of optic nerve damage, and also about where on earth I go from here, with eyes that are still inflamed.
It seems I am sensitive to almost everything chemical going into my eye. For example when they put in anaesthetic drops today to do contact tonometry I reacted with what they described as 'blepharospasm' (this happened also with these same drops when I was last at the hospital - only for the consultant to say, unhelpfully, 'Well, you shouldn't be feeling anything - I've just put anaesthetic in your eyes'). Who knows if the drops I've to put in to reduce the pressure will cause even more reactions?
Is this hypersensitivity typical of ocular rosacea? I still don't have a 'diagnosis' of this. Just 'ocular surface disease', whatever that is.
One good thing that did come out of this morning was that I have been loaned a set of Blephasteam goggles to try for a few days to see if that improves my MGD, which I'm glad about as I didn't want to spend all that money on them in case they don't work for me. I'm not sure how long it will take to see if they are doing any good or not - I'll try and hang on to them for as long as I can get away with though
It's just so hard though - I feel like I don't know what to do next - everything I've been doing just seems to create more problems.
Last night I slept with my Onyix sleep mask on and I woke up to eyes that were just as dry as ever and even slightly more inflamed.
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