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  • Corneal Erosions, Spasms, Other Diagnosis Possible?

    Almost 6 years ago I was diagnosed with corneal erosion and I was able to completely avoid the problem for almost 5 years by simply awakening and keeping my eyes still, closed and relaxed. Then I would lay on my back, add artificial tears and slowly open my eyes. The artificial tears would lubricate my eyelids so that they would not pull the epithelial cells off. Worked like a charm and certainly better than everything else. I tried including muro 128, etc. Before that, as many of you know erosions give you that painful burning, excessive tearing feeling, etc.

    About a year and a half or so back things seem to change in a very strange way and I was getting erosions again but now I'm just starting to wonder if this might be something different that causes erosions. I started waking up either in the middle of the night or morning with a violent stabbing pain. It feels as if my eye is in a spasm and being given an electric shock which of course then causes an erosion. It's also a much more intense pain. The strange thing to me is that it seems even if my eyelids are not moving at all, I still can feel this stabbing pain coming on. So, I'm starting to wonder if it's simply RCES or something more.

    Another thing about this is it seems to go in cycles like I could be pretty much erosion free for months then I could start having them every night or even twice a night for a few weeks then it just goes away.

    A year back I had PTK and it failed so I decided to have it done again and that was yesterday. This morning when I awakened I again felt that feeling like something was not right (a stabbing pain and ironically it seems like if I did not open my eyes then the pain would continue to escalate). I had a follow up today from the PTK with my doctor and amazingly he said something very interesting to me. He said it is impossible for me to have an erosion now because he debrided my epithelium yesterday before doing the PTK and I basically have no epithelium to erode and I'm healing very well. But, now it lingers on as to what it was that I felt. He said it could just be the bandage lens he put in that was moving around but I don't buy it.

    This is different than RCES. With RCES it's almost as if you should keep your eyes still and closed after an episode to keep the cells from sloughing off. With this, when it first comes on if I don't open my eyes the pain escalates with huge intensity until I open them. I know this because this has happened a few times right before drifting off to sleep and as it comes on rather than immediately open my eyes I would pay attention to the feeling and I know I'm not in REM and my eyelids are not moving but the pain continues like a knife is shooting in my eye. Once I open my eyes (if I do it soon enough) the pain immediately subsides otherwise the pain continues to escalate quickly with great intensity forcing me to open my eyes with an erosion.

    The only other thing I can think of is could it be some kind of moisture build up behind the cornea forcing me to open my eyes? Something happens where it feels like a violent stabbing spasm forcing me to open my eyes. It's a pain beyond belief.

    Does anyone have any idea what this could be? Has anyone experienced something like this or know where I can learn more about this?

    Thanks,
    Mike

  • #2
    Hi, Mike.

    I'm sorry that I missed this message until now. And, I'm very sorry about this strange pain that you are experiencing.

    I was struck by this sentence of yours: "The only other thing I can think of is could it be some kind of moisture build up behind the cornea forcing me to open my eyes?"

    This is very similar to what happened to me when things were at their worst and from time to time, when I feel like I could lapse right back into erosions again. I think that it is like a blistering of the basement membrane that occurs with EBMD (epithelial basement membrane dystrophy). Could it have been the basement membrane that was presenting the problem more than the epithelium? I don't know what the nerve density would be in the different layers other than knowing it is quite high in the epithelium. However, it might be worth asking your doctor about.

    How are you doing now?

    --Liz

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