Gettng warm compress too hot, resulting in severe jolts of pain; have neuropathy

[mgshutterbug]

Hi,
I did something really stupid this a.m. because I was in a hurry. I couldnt get my warm wet compresses warm enough, they kept cooling off too qickly. So I started splashing warm water against closed eyelids with water runnning. The water suddenly became very hot, I had splashed it on my L eye, the one with the neuropathy which was getting much better. I suddenly got electric like jolts of pain, which were horrible. The jolts have continued for 4 1/2 hrs now. They are not as frequent, but still enough so that I am in alot of pain. The eye is super sensitive to light anyway from botched neurosurgery, and now it's even wrose. I am typing this w/o looking as I have an eyepatch on to decrease light and therefore some pain. Has anyone had something like this happen before? I had just seen my retina specialist and wwwalked downstairs to my corneal specialist. She looked at it and said the eye was incredibly dry, to put drops in every hour for most of day. I don'at think it has anything to do with that. I think I set something off because I do have neuropathy. I'm frustrated and scared. And angry at myself.

Please forgive all typos as I am typoing wtih both eyes closed. The R eye was dilated as well, so I can't see well out of it either.

[Rebecca Petris]

HUGE caveat on anything I say because I'm neurologically illiterate but it just makes me think of trigeminal nerve V1. I used to occasionally have episodes where something in my left eye would trigger this and once it was set off, it just had to run its course. It would fan out over the whole left side of my head. Never lasted more than a day but it could be pretty miserable. Not quite the type or intensity of pain you're describing but not too dissimilar either.

I'm so sorry Maria. One of those days to take it easy, stay in the dark with a cold (or warm but not hot!) pack.

[abbygirl]

Maria- I have done something similar only with a too hot washcloth. My eye seemed OK at first but as the evening progressed I got that horrible deep eye socket pain that lasts all day!! Don't beat yourself up...just lay off the heat for acouple of days and see how it goes. Do you have some sort of pain medication?? At least to get your pain/eye settled down. When I have that deep pain I have a tough time functioning without a pain med.

Hang in there!!!

[mgshutterbug]

Sorry that I didn't post back on this thread. I thought I did, maybe I put it somewhere else, or forgot to. Anyhow, the pain continued for about 7 1/2 hrs, I think. Then it suddenly went away, and has not recurred, Thank God. When I saw my ophthalmologist today, she was relieved that the pain had not continued beyond what it had. Of course I would have been right back in there the next day if it hadn't. I couldn't take the jolts. I did still have pain meds from my shoulder surgery, so was taking them. To tell the truth, they really didn't help much. But I'm better now, and extremely careful when applying warm compresses. Because of the neuropathic pain, I was so scared it would continue for months.

[buntbean]

I've done the same with a too hot washcloth. My pain has lasted for weeks. I find pain meds seems to increase the dryness in my eyes and even make the pain worse. I have to say those suicidal thoughts trickle in after a few days. The dry eye issue is horrible enough but when you add the nerve pain in it really gets to be too much to bear. I just try to tell myself that the pain will eventually subside. I've had this for 7 years and it always comes and goes.

[jenny2008]

omg.. i accidentally burned my one eyelid last sunday--the doc gvae me me lotemax ointment for the lid which helped and then my general practioner doc called in some norco.. big mistake. while it helped with the eyelid pain it made me so dry for days after.