upper eye pain

[ronnyp]

4 months ago i was diagnosed with blepharitis and dry eye. my last dr. visit, he said the blepharitis is under pretty good control, and my schirmer test was a 10. he said i dont show the "classic" signs of dry eye, but i am in severe pain. The pain is coming from the very top of my eye, kind of where the crease in your upper eyelid is, just under your eye brows. all the drs. i have been to, have no idea, why i am in such bad pain. I have never had lasic, or any other eye surgery. I havent been wearing my contacs at all lately, but i stuck them in the other day, and the pain really eases up immediatly with my contacs in. I have been thru 7 different eye doctors, and cant get no help. I am going to the cole eye center at the cleveland clinic on thursday.

[Cindy]

Have you ruled out sinus problems as the source of the pain?

[ronnyp]

i have not had a sinus test, but my family doctor gave me perscription a while back, and said that if i was having any sinus problems, the medicine would clear my sinuses out. it didnt help at all. i am starting to get worried that i have a tumor or something causing the pain. I have tried twice to have an MRI done, but i am extremely chlaustrophobic, and couldnt do it, the last time, they had me on a high dose of ativan, to chill me out, and i still went nuts. i am not having any severe headaches or anything. i am wondering if my glasses are hurting my eyes? they are the correct perscription, but i wore contacs for 20 years, and didnt even own a pair of glasses, until 4 months ago. when i am sitting around the house without my glasses on, the pain isnt as severe. my eyes hardly ever feel real dry, to the point where i feel like i desperately need to put drops in. Cindy, is my score on the schirmers test, really low or is that fairly normal, If i have learned 1 thing thru all of this, is that becoming an eye doctor, cant be all that hard, because everytime i go, i seem to know something, that they obviously never learned in school. If anybody can give me any advice, i will listen. I spent today fighting with my insurance company, to make sure they are gonna cover me at the cleveland clinic. the UPMC insurance administrator is going to decide if i have sufficient reason to go to a specialist in cleveland. I dont understand how some guy, who dont even know anything about my condition, can make that decision for me.

[mike838]

I also had the eye pain right where you explain it and it came on with the onset of the blepharitis. The pain has simmered down somewhat with the treatment but I know how bad it was compared to now. I had all the sinus tests and a mri and ct of the sinus cavity. All were normal. I saw a dr that saw something no other Dr. saw. I know that thee are alot of tests out there for blepharits and dry eye unfortanatlly not many eye drs are all that through in there testing sometimes(well in my experience which has been 6 eye drs). This ned dr saw that the eye lid wiper was raw and that is common with the dry eye. Its called lid wiper epitheriopathy. Not a single dr I saw ever said that word and when you look it up there is only one dr s name you see over and over. He is the man that told me I had this condition. That is the center of the pain for me and its exactally what I felt when I dident know. I did go to many eye drs that said your eyes look fine you dont have blepharits. The two drs that did see that I did started treating me and now I know alot more today then I did over the past year of treatment form one dr that told me of this condition. Hope this helps and I wish you luck at the clinic.

[jcorbett]

Mike383 - how did they treat you? I have experienced that off and on. seems to appear when my eyes are drier. I thought it had something to do with the trialgemic nerve.

[DrG]

"Lid wiper epitheliopathy" was discovered by Donald Korb, O.D. (Scheppen's Institute). The article first appeared, along with mine, in the January 2005 issue of "Eye and Contact Lens: Science and Clinical Practice."'

Are you the same Mike I recommended Dr. Korb to?

DrG

[mike838]

Yes Dr.G And I owe you a thousand thanks for that. I learned more from him in a few hours then I have searching forums and the internet over the past year. He is an amazing dr. I also must add that I have never been treated so well By a Dr and he really seems to want to help dry eye paitients get better. I think he is dedicated to dry eye paitents and helping us get better as well as coming up with new info for treatment of dry eye. He made my mother with sjorgrens feel better in that one day with his eye drop soothe. I owe you big for that refferal Dr.G. I dident know that you worked with him before when you gave me the refferal. Jcorbet I see him again today to figure out the treatment options. I had to wait another week and get a run or tests again so I will let you know today how it goes. I am being hopeful that this appt goes as well as last week and I get more answers today. He found all the problems everyone else over looked.

[DrG]

Mike, I'm glad my referral helped you so much.

I never said that Dr. Korb and I worked together. In fact, we have never met. His name was already in the contact lens textbooks when I was in optometry school. The only reason I was familiar with the term "lid-wiper epitheliopathy" was because I read Dr. Korb's paper last year. Dr. Korb is very well-known and respected and his name immediately came to mind when you asked me for a referral in Boston.

I hope you will post more details of your treatment.

[mike838]

Sorry dr.g I read that wrong I though you said you co wrote that article. I appoligise I misinterperted that.

[Seb233]

Mike how did you treat your lid wiper?