New Diagnosis: Rosacea

[itchyeyes]

I am self diagnosed with occular rosecea. I am very fair and definitely have facial rosecea, and I am so confused. I did azasite for a month on my lid margins, and I believe that burned out my glands further. I have not recovered in my opinion from using azasite. I believe I have allergies to all the preservatives especially BAK and everytime I go to the dr. I feel worse.

Warm compresses, hot compresses, cold compresses, lid scrubs - every dr. has told me something different, and I continue to deteriorate. I have no oil coming out at all. I don't know what to do. It doesn't seem to make any difference at all warm or cold.

The last dr. gave me no direction; he just said to make myself comfortable using artificial tears and lacriserts so now, I seek another. I can't just roll over and give up on this. There has to be something else to try. He didn't want to give me steroids or doxy....so what to do.

I am on restasis almost three months now- limited improvement at best.

Do I do warm and cold compresses and cancel each other out?

Melissa

Hi Melissa,

I would try to find a doctor who will treat you with steroids for a few months at least... and maybe try restasis for a couple of more months as well. That will hopefully calm everything down. This all started for me last July and like you I eventually used Azasite which really was the beginning of my severe dry eye and which made everything worse for me. If you believe you're reacting to the preservatives then I would try to get any drops you use in the future compounded without them.

I would also recommend trying to use cold compresses or ice cubes only for a while and see if that helps you.

I do know that heat was aggravating my inflammation. It may have helped with oil production and it did feel soothing at first when I seemed to have conjunctivitis and I had more discharge, but over the long run it made me worse. As soon as I went back on a steroid and switched to ice I started to improve. And I mean ice cubes, not a cold compress. They give me more relief than anything else because they bring follicle swelling down immediately and they produce tears, which feels wonderful. I do use a warm vaporizer at night and I have some heat with steam in the shower but I don't put heat directly on my eyes anymore. I also have cut down the amount of indoor heating drastically, the vaporizer acts like a moist heater in the winter, and I rarely use a heater in a car now. Some other things which helped my dryness tremendously are dwelle, tranquil eyes, panoptx glasses, cod liver/salmon oil and more oil & fat generally in my diet.


IE

[rybdho1372]

I am self diagnosed with occular rosecea. I am very fair and definitely have facial rosecea, and I am so confused. I did azasite for a month on my lid margins, and I believe that burned out my glands further. I have not recovered in my opinion from using azasite. I believe I have allergies to all the preservatives especially BAK and everytime I go to the dr. I feel worse.

Warm compresses, hot compresses, cold compresses, lid scrubs - every dr. has told me something different, and I continue to deteriorate. I have no oil coming out at all. I don't know what to do. It doesn't seem to make any difference at all warm or cold.

The last dr. gave me no direction; he just said to make myself comfortable using artificial tears and lacriserts so now, I seek another. I can't just roll over and give up on this. There has to be something else to try. He didn't want to give me steroids or doxy....so what to do.

I am on restasis almost three months now- limited improvement at best.

Do I do warm and cold compresses and cancel each other out?

Melissa

I recently have come to the self-conclusion that my years of red eyes (long painful story of repeated steroids, restastis, muro128) are due to ocular rosecea. I didn't realize it until I put 2+2 together. I have flare ups of acne rosecea. Less recently and less severe since I believe I have changed my diet (dairy-free, elimination of unecessary sugars, greater water intake, flaxseed oil intake, etc.). When I started treating the acne rosecea, the ocular rosecea also subsided. It may be a good thing to check out the roseacea support forum. There's alot of relevant information especially regarding demodex. I'm not fully cured but at least I feel there is a path forward. The warm compresses do definitely help get the glands to open up, but lid hygiene is also important.

[msienkiewicz]

Thank you for all the great info. I am always finding something new to try. I am hoping that if my face gets better, just redness, my eyes will as well. I will check out that site as well.

Can't hurt to keep trying,
Melissa

[msienkiewicz]

Just a little funny -

We are up north for the holiday weekend, and I bought a new vaporizer from WALGREENS. I added the water and put it on high. It has a really pretty blue light as well - I digress... Anyway, put on my saran wrap, 2 eye masks and went to sleep. I woke up and slowly opened my eyes and thought that something terrible had happened to my vision. The entire (small) room was in a complete thick fog. Needless to say, my eyes were very moist, but I think we'll put it on low tonight.

Melissa