Just started Restasis

[halfmoonbaygal]

Swollen eyelids: cold vs. hot

Well, from my years as a personal trainer/aerobics instructor/athletic trainer/adapted P.E. teacher, I was always told that cold is better for swelling (the RICE principle--rest, ice, compression, elevation, especially right after an injury to interrupt the inflammation cycle) and that seems like it would come into play, here, but perhaps I'm wrong.

I, too, have tried everything (short of surgeries) for my drye eyes. My optometrist told me to add another hot compress session in the morning. Well, between sleep-swollen eyes anyway, it really makes my eyes puffy and I'm tired of people telling me how exhausted I look. Cripes.

So, I'm thinking that hot compresses gets the glands secreting what they need to, and the cold will stop the oil secretions (think putting olive in the fridge). So, in summary, when I want swelling to go down, I slap something cold on the affected area; it just seems to make more physiological sense to me. That's just my opinion, and worth exactly what you paid for it

Good luck with that swelling--it must be really hard to deal with.

Andrea

[jcorbett]

I do the warm compresses faithfully every morning to get the oil glands going. For other discomfort, I use the cold. Using the cold does not seem to make my oil glands stop working or cause me more discomfort. I just saw some eye masks at Shopko filled with some sort of material that you stick in the freezer to keep cold. They had an indentation for your eyes so the cold didn't lay directly on your eye. They were selling them for swelling. They were over by the allergy meds.
I didn't buy one, but they were reasonably priced and looked very comfortable. As I write this, I am wondering why I didn't buy one!!