What are your thoughts on these?

[jammie_t]

Pics taken first thing in the morning on two consecutive days. What do you think it looks like?

I am working with my doc to establish what could be causing this. I have tried a lot of treatments without success. I took accutane over 6 years ago, my eyes became dry then after 12 months they were 100% fine again. I then moved into a new build apartment and within a week or two my eyes 'went' again. Whether this is pure coincidence or not, it's one of the things i'm looking at with my doc. Eyes are always sore in the morning then they get a little better through the morning and progressively get worse towards the eve (a work on a PC a lot).

Very briefly... I have tried heat, scrubs, lots of eyedrops (pres free), anti-allegy oral meds and drops ... now back on a course of steroids with minimal success so far (10 days in).

My doc says that my eyes don't look that bad under the lamp, however he can see some low level inflamation, so something is 'triggering' a reaction!

Any opinion/advice would be much appreciated.

Thank-you.

[Faith1989]

How long have your eyes been slightly inflamed? Did this JUST happen within the last few weeks? My eyes have also been slightly red for the past two years on and off. What steriod are you using? FML made me worse, and it was the first one prescribed..

[jammie_t]

Hi - no they have been like this for nearly 5 years - sometimes better, sometimes worse. I'm currently using PRED - 10 days in and no real improvement yet.

[Cali]

Have you ever seen a dermatologist for rosacea? It sometimes look's like acne (or adult acne). It can go into your eyes, "ocular rosacea." And it flares. Meaning sometimes it's there and sometimes it's not. It flares up for sometimes no reason (heat, spicy foods, stress). You just moved into a new apartment, which can be "stressful." That sometimes causes rosacea to flare. Also, you took Accutane for "acne." Make sure it was acne and not rosacea, they can look the same. Problem is, there is no way that I know of that they can diagnose ocular rosacea, but it's something to consider and look into. They use doxycycline and corticosteroids to treat ocular rosacea.

[jammie_t]

Thanks for the reply - no i haven't seen a derm for rosacea - will look into that thanks. I actually moved 5 years ago, which coincided with my eyes going worse again.

[Faith1989]

I actually also never had any problems until I moved south. Doctors keep saying its not allergies.. A low dose steroid and serum drops are the only things that have helped me. No allergy drops/meds have worked..

Cali is right and any skin problem can travel into the eyes. (Just when you think things can't gets worse eh lol) I have a feeling it was maybe the move/stress that may have triggered it. 10 days on pred may not be enough, give it more like 3 weeks. When I was first put on Steroids I didn't think it did anything until about 21 days. Now a days when I don't use Steroids my eyes seem to get worse, it sucks.

[jammie_t]

Thanks - interestingly i've just been reading about ocular rosacea and i can relate to some of the info online, for example a hot bath always seems to make my eyes worse, i drink far too much tea/coffee every day (that obviously needs to go!). Also my doc has mentioned that i have seborrhea on the lashes and some bleph (been doing scrubs for this) both of which can be found in people with ocular rosacea.

Not sure about this though - i was away in portugal a couple of weeks ago and my eyes felt fine. That's why the doc thinks it could be something triggering in my flat?

[Cali]

I noticed in your photos some "ruddiness" to your skin around your nose and extending to your cheeks a bit. Rosacea causes redness on your nose, cheeks, chin, and forehead. Some people get little bumps and pimples on the red parts of their faces. Rosacea can also cause burning and soreness in your eyes.

It's tricky because if a dermatologist does diagnose you with rosacea, they won't ask you if your eyes burn, hurt, or are dry, etc. A cornea specialist will not ask you if you have facial rosacea (thus won't make the connection to ocular rosacea). There is a disconnect in the professions. 50% of people who have facial rosacea also have ocular. I saw 6 “top” cornea specialists (one of whom was running clinical studies on dry eye) and none ever asked if I had rosacea.

Rosacea can be very subtle, with just redness. Or some people it's can get full blown and bad and look like horrible acne. Ocular rosacea doesn't really "look" bad, but eyes hurt and burn. Again, rosacea flares (facial and ocular), comes and goes.

Something to look into if all else fails. It's VERY important to rule it out. I ended up with ALL of my lower meibomian glands dropping out (atrophy) because the ocular rosacea went so long untreated – years and years.

And you notice some triggers? Hot baths aggravate rosacea as does caffeine (coffee), spicy foods, extreme heat (working out too hard) and certain foods and stress. Definitely you could feel fine in Portugal but bad in your flat. Again, this condition “flares,” comes and goes, it’s trigger based. In your flat, you probably drink coffee, take your hot baths, maybe have stressful conversations, eat spicy foods or histamine producing foods, etc. so you appear to have more trouble in your flat because that’s where a lot of triggers take place.

This dry eye stuff is multi-faceted and takes awhile to figure out.