Dry eyes and sinuses/allergies??

[Trac]

Does anyone see a connection between dry eyes and clogged sinuses? I notice that in general my right eye hurts more than my left eye. Also my right eye hurts more in the morning if I wake up with any sinus pressure or mucus in the nasal cavity of my right side. Generally my eyes feel best in the morning.
About 20 years ago I use to get frequent severe ear aches on the right side; the doctor said it was allergies.

I wonder if all of this is somehow connected.

[Colin P]

Hmmmmm!!??. My Right is far worse than my Left eye, i am forever blowing just the Left side of my nose, i asume the Right one is either clear or semi-blocked? I have cattarhh also, (think that's how you spell it?) when summer first arrives the pressure (narrowing of airways) is that bad i get headaches and embarrasingly, cant keep my mouth closed whilst eating as i need my mouth open to breath!..cant take in enough air through narrowed nasal airways.

[MaryVa61]

I think my eye drops end up in my sinus/naval cavity and throat because of the way they connect (but I'm bad at anatomy). So meds in the eye drops are also going there, including the ingredients I had skin allergies to. Also, since I'm sensitive to BAK in eye drops, I tossed out the sinus saline spray and nasal gel I'd been using because discovered they contained BAK too. Using products that don't contain BAK, which were hard to find, has definitely helped my nose. Less swelling, irritation and mucus.

[y-gwair]

There is definitely a connection between eyes and sinus problems,. I noticed a definite worsening of sinus problems after I had my plugs. Also, the deep, nagging, aching pain in my right eye turned out to be referred pain from a sinus infection, it disappeared almost miraculously after a course of amoxycillin.

There is something called Vasomotor Rhinitis, which sounds very like a nasal form of rosacea in that it is inflammation triggered by environmental factors (cold temp, pollution, spices, emotion) without a primary immune response. My guess is that it's probably closely linked to rosacea as a phenomenon, I've certainly noticed that all my eye/skin/nose problems flare up together in the past.

I used to assume this was allergy related (and then go on to make things worse by taking antihistamenes and steroid sprays) but I've since had exhaustive allergy/sensitivity testing (including to all known irritants like BAK) with no result. Current Derm agrees all these symptoms can be purely neurovascular in origin.

[abbygirl]

y-gwair,
I find your post about the eye pain/sinus infection to be very interesting. I have been to countless doctors to try to identify why I have almost constant pain behind my left eyeball. It is different than the dry eye pain I have...more intense and sometimes starts as a burning pain and escalates to a deep pain that radiates up the left side of my head. I have to take excedrin daily so I don't have the pain. I am really wondering if this is sinus related because my nose is always stuffy lately and my ear keeps popping. This all seems to have started when I started the drop Timoptic for high pressure..just in THAT eye. My right eye does not have this pain.

Does this sound like your pain/symptoms?? I guess I should see an ENT doctor??

[MaryVa61]

Interesting discussion!

y-gwair, I had the opposite reaction to you with plugs. The plugs helped my Rhinitis subtantially. A lot less nose-running. I'm diagnosed with Vasomotor Rhinitis and Rosacea, and have other blood vessel issues as well, including a rare neurovascular disorder. Also type IV delayed hypersensitivities.

abbygirl, Have you looked up side effects of your pressure drops? Another thing to consider is that most (or all) Glaucoma drops can cause DES, so will make pre-existing DES worse in that eye. I have Glaucoma and DES among other things. When my eye problems (all of them!) were out of control last year and early this year, I had a new deep pain in my eyes that my opth said can be caused by DES. That surprised me since I'd had dry eyes all my life and hadn't had that kind of pain before. Now that all my eye disorders are under better control, including the DES, I don't have that deep pain. I'm hoping winter dry air doesn't trigger that and the wierd folds again this year.

[abbygirl]

Mary,
You are right about the Glaucoma drop making my eye much drier. What drop are you using for your pressure?? Do you have a routine that helps you control the pain?? I have dry eye in both eyes but the one eye that needs the pressure drop is 100 times drier and has that deep pain. I am constantly aware of that eye and it is becoming very depressing. I see a cornea specialist in October after a 4 month wait. I am hoping he can tell if this is all from dry eye. Sorry to vent!!

[MaryVa61]

You're not venting Abbygirl. Just look at my new thread to see venting! I'm having a terrible time with allergic reactions to the drops/dye used to test my glaucoma Friday and terribly frustrated that the doctor for my glaucoma doesn't care about my DES or drop reactions. And now that I'm in the midst of another bad type 4 allergic reaction in my eyes, I realize that it also causes a deeper type of pain than the DES alone. But it is constant and feels like my eyeball is going to burst whereas I'm not sure the DES deep pain was constant. My memory is bad and it stopped months ago, but I do clearly remember the more severe DES causing some really deep and severe stabbing pains.

For Glaucoma: Xalatan was drying & I was allergic to the BAK. Alphagan-P didn't lower my pressure at all. Combigan did better than those two at lowering my pressure and less dryness/allergy, but does contain some BAK (much less than Xalatan) so still a little drying and allergic. Now trying Travatan-Z, but haven't been on it long enough to see how it will do. Just started Friday 9/9. Not happy that it contains castor oil, but we'll see.

If this new drug doesn't work for me, I'll see about getting Xalatan compounded by Leiter's w/o BAK. Pretty sure they could do it.

Also I'm now looking around to see if there is an opth in my city who uses a dynamic contour tonometer to measure pressure. It's supposed to be accurate and requires no anesthetic drops or dyes. I just learned about it by googling PubMed. So, with better glaucoma meds for allergy/sensitivity and that tonometer, I'd be hopeful of significant improvement in my DES. Have to have something to hope for!

[Trac]

Mary,
I do not have glaucoma, but I use to get very similar pains in my eyes. Sometimes my eye would feel like it was very swollen inside and was going to burst. I would have to shut one eye and push down on the eye ball when I was driving if the pain got too severe. Then I would switch to the other eye. The doctor told me I could not feel an increase in eye pressure, but when this sort of pain occurred my eye pressure was always high. I would also get a stabbing pain in my eye, like someone sticking an ice pick in my eye. Luckily, I have not had that pain in a while. It is good to know that i am not the only one with weird symptoms.

[Scout]

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/e...cle/003038.htm


Trac,

Has your doctor ever suggested this headache/swelling/pressure could be chemosis?

I think this is what occurs in my case—always on the left side.

Chemosis

Chemosis is swelling of the tissue that lines the eyelids and surface of the eye (conjunctiva).

Considerations

Chemosis is a sign of eye irritation. The outer surface of the eye looks like it has fluid in it. Often, the eye area swells so much that you can't close your eyes properly.
Chemosis is often related to allergies or an eye infection. Chemosis can also be a complication of eye surgery, or it may occur from rubbing the eye too much.

Snip

Over-the-counter antihistamines and cool compresses placed on the eyes may help relieve symptoms due to allergies.

Call your health care provider if:

• Your symptoms do not go away
• You have other symptoms, such as eye pain, change in vision, difficulty breathing, or fainting

Zaditor allergy drops did help but I had to stop using them because the BAK eventually made things worse.

Cold compresses really help me. But antihistamines do not. However, decongestants with naproxen sodium do help (pseudoephendrine/naproxen sodium). However, this medication can be very drying so be forewarned. You also have to ask for it behind the counter at the drug store.

For me, stopping the pressure, pain and headache before it reaches the level of migraine is crucial. The several hours of extra drying is bearable compared to the headache.

By the way, for me, when the pressure is the most intense, my vision does change. I have to wear an older pair of glasses with a weaker prescription or take my glasses off completely or I will get even more pain from the incorrect glasses prescription.

For prevention, I have worked for several years to identify and remove any possible triggers in my environment that I am sensitive/allergic to. This has also been very helpful.

Scout

[MaryVa61]

Trac, Somehow it's reassuring to me also, that someone else has many odd issues. But sorry you suffer with it all.

Scout, That sounds like part of what was going on with me so much yesterday. Vision was very affected in addition to pain. Was very much like what I had constantly last yr and early this yr before discovering my chemical allergies to things in my home and getting rid of them. Though had other problems then too, with styes, chalazion...

Still have a little pain today but much better. Yesterday I did the wrong thing, used warm compresses, not cool. Thanks for posting the info.

Mary

[Trac]

Thanks for all of the information. I have not mentioned it to my doctor because it is a new symptom and I have not been back to see him since the headaches started. The headaches seem to be most often when my sinuses seem to be slightly plugged. I took prescription strength ibuprofen and that seemed to help a lot.

I will try cold compresses next time it occurs and I am at home.
I don’t think we can control everything that we are allergic to. And I honestly think that sometimes one thing will affect me and another time it will not. It just depends on what kind of eye day I am having. Sometimes my vision is okay and sometimes it is so bad I cannot read the signs on the freeway until I am underneath them. I can have fine vision all day and when I go to bed and try to read the letters get blurrier and blurrier until I cannot read anything at all. Weird.

[MaryVa61]

I can relate (again) Trac. Yesterday the allergic reaction with pain and dryness was better than Saturday. Today it's much worse than yesterday, and I have no idea why. It's not all predictable.

[y-gwair]

y-gwair,
I find your post about the eye pain/sinus infection to be very interesting. I have been to countless doctors to try to identify why I have almost constant pain behind my left eyeball. It is different than the dry eye pain I have...more intense and sometimes starts as a burning pain and escalates to a deep pain that radiates up the left side of my head. I have to take excedrin daily so I don't have the pain. I am really wondering if this is sinus related because my nose is always stuffy lately

Does this sound like your pain/symptoms?? I guess I should see an ENT doctor??

Hi, sorry to hear you are in pain. It can be so difficult to untangle how various types of pain relate, especially for our doctors. I had to go back about 5 times, and change ophthalmologist before we got to the bottom of it.

It sometimes seemed like my eye pain migrated across my face to my ear, but then I also have neuralgic pain/deafness in that ear. What made me think sinus was that I started to get pain in other sinus areas, i.e above the eye and middle of the cheek, plus I started producing bloody mucous in the related nostril. My new ophth. mentioned 'sinus' the minute I described deep aching pain behind the eye. I also had periorbital oedema around the same eye, which seemed related to the pain (i.e. both were much worse after lying down for any length of time). I think to be sure it would be worth seeing ENT if only to try to rule is out as a possible cause.

[y-gwair]

Interesting discussion!

y-gwair, I had the opposite reaction to you with plugs. The plugs helped my Rhinitis subtantially. A lot less nose-running. I'm diagnosed with Vasomotor Rhinitis and Rosacea, and have other blood vessel issues as well, including a rare neurovascular disorder. Also type IV delayed hypersensitivities.

How interesting. Anecdotally a lot of people with rosacea seem to have Raynaud's phenomenon, so there does seem to be growing evidence for links between all these conditions. I'm interested that you have a diagnosis of vasomotor rhinitis, doctors are so blasé about attributing rhinitis to 'allergy' without any evidence. Only today I saw a GP who recommended steroid nasal spray (for the bleeding, which still carries on); I'm afraid she got a rant from me on the damaging effect of steroids on facial vasculature (aka steroid-induced rosacea), which can be induced by steroid nasal sprays according to my rosacea specialist. I think that's why it's really important to understand the difference between true allergic reactions and neuro-vascular sensitivity, as treatments for the former can have a devastating effect on the latter condition.