I need to hear the truth. ---Can the "Itching and burning" go away?

[Ariel]

In the seven months I've been living with interior and posterior blepharitis, MGD and dry eye, I've only seen the "itching and burning" sensation get worse every day. It's come to the point where I've lost all desire for anything I used to enjoy.

My life has become living with pain that stays with me 24 hours a day. In my dreams I'm a normal person and when I open my eyes the nightmare begins.

The woman I love is someone I won't even dare say "I love you" to because the only life I can give to her is a life in which I'll be consumed by my pain every moment of the day. There will be pain in every experience we share so now, instead of thinking of us together I picture her holding hands with someone she can do all the things I've always wanted to do with her.

I've gotten some very caring and supportive replies from many of you but nothing can be more helpful to me than hearing someone tell me it is possible for the "itching and burning" to go away.

Can it really happen? If so when does it happen? What do I need to do? Who do I have to see? Life has become a living hell for me and I feel there's no way out of it. I'd like to ask for a buddy, someone who can show me the light, but it will will need to be someone who's been where I am. Is this "itching a burning" something that can go away or does one just learn to live with it as if it were a missing pair of legs?

Where does the itching and burning come from? What needs to happen for it to go away? Is thinking that it will a realistic hope or is it living in fantasy?

[DG65]

Sent you a PM.

[Guest]

Yes, it can go away. It was almost constant for me last summer, but now I rarely have it. So don't give up. You'll eventually figure out what works for you.

The biggest contributing factor to my burning going away was wearing moisture chamber glasses (Wiley X's) 24/7. This helped enormously while I waited for other treatments (ex. gland expression, oral tetracyclines etc.) to kick in. I think it would have taken much longer for the burning to go away had I not worn moisture chambers. At first, it might seem like they don't make much difference... your eyes might be in such bad shape that any help from moisture chambers isn't noticeable... but with a longer term trial of a few weeks, I think you'll find they do indeed help) If you're already using them, then that's a great!

Also, cold compresses multiple times per day helped. The only downside was that these made my eyes stick shut, so I had to be very careful to slide some drops in oh-so-carefully before opening my eyes after a cold compress. (If I wasn't careful enough, I'd get a scratchy feeling for hours afterwards where my eyeball had been stuck to my lids)

When I didn't have time to sit around with a cold compress for 1/2 an hour, splashing my closed lids with ice cold tap water gave some relief. I would do this ridiculously often some days, but it helped, so was worth the trouble.

[mylittlem]

Unfortunately, for those of us with eye pain AND trigeminal nerve pain, any type of goggles or glasses that come in contact with the skin surrounding the eyes is intolerable. The same is true of compresses (warm or cool) because the compress in contact with the skin causes more nerve pain in that trigeminal area.

So for those DEZ bloggers, who feel that they should try either of these two so-called remedies because so many users claim that they work, please be very, very careful. If you are a nerve pain person, you may actually be making matters worse by trying to follow what seems to have helped so many others. I found out the hard way. I had continued with these "remedies" and because the pain became worse, I became suicidal. It is not the answer for everyone.

[Guest]

I guess I should specify then that for me, these treatments never seemed to make my discomfort worse... they only gave relief.

My littlem: Just trying to understand your experience with these treatments and nerve pain... so are you saying that when you tried moisture chambers, cold compresses etc. they made you feel worse but you continued to use them anyways in the hope that they would help eventually? (ex. hoping the cold would bring down inflammation eventually even though it made you feel worse in the short term?)

Or was it the case that when you tried the moisture chambers, cold compresses etc. they seemed to have no effect (either good or bad), but only later you realized they were making things worse for you?

[mylittlem]

SAAG: I guess it is the latter. When you have so many experts insisting that you try certain things, you convince yourself that if you continue eventually you will get some improvement. After following the doctors' instructions for so long, you finally come to the realization that the regimen they have you following is simply making the pain more severe.

[Guest]

Wow... Thank goodness you finally realized what was going on! Sorry if you've posted this already, but did you eventually find something that improved things for you?

Knowing what you know now, do you think there is a difference in the burning and itching sensation from blepharitis vs. the burning and itching you get from nerve pain such as yours? I guess I'm just thinking if there is a way to help Ariel figure out if his burning itchy eyes are from bleph or from nerve pain, it would prove helpful...

[Lucy]

My nerve eye pain and other neuralgia I have with Sjogrens have been helped by Lyrica. The eye pain was caused by Lasik surgery.

[dryasadesert]

itching and burning, I go to allergies....try claritin for a few WEEKS to see if it helps.