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Is this dry eye, allergy, or something else?

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  • Is this dry eye, allergy, or something else?

    Hello everyone,

    In February 2012, I had small eye injury, erosion of cornea after my left eye was hit by small stoney particles.

    The erosion of cornea is healed for a long time (as reviewed by a local ophthalmologist - they also confirmed there are no particles in the eye), but ever since the injury I feel tingle/itching and/or dull pain in my left (injured) eye, located under (or at the border of) the bottom eyelid, closer to nose (somewhere near the tear duct).

    Would someone be so kind and help me narrow down some options of what this could eventually be? Here are my observations and status:

    Eye
    - The vision is normal.
    - The pain is worst after waking up (5-10 minutes) and then later in the evening.
    - During the day I'm permanently aware of the problem as well, too.
    - I do my work at PC, but I don't observe any significant improvement when doing something else.
    - The point of pain is always on the same place, it doesn't migrate.
    - It feels like a grain of sand (often with closed eyes) or (much more often) as burning.
    - I can keep the eye open without blinking for a longer time, the pain doesn't intensify (nor reduce) with different frequency of blinking.
    - When looking into a mirror, I see a standard eye liquid in the eye (like in the other eye).
    - It seems to me that the pain comes from the conjuctiva rather than from the eye surface (when I move the bottom eyelid "out", the pain seems to "move").
    - When the doc examined the eye, and was lighting into the eye, the pain was most obvious (reaction to the light?) when she was checking the conjuctiva sac (inner side of bottom eyelid) at the point of pain described above.
    - The pain seems to decrease a bit when I look towards the ceiling (while keeping the head in horizontal line).
    - The conjuctival sac is somewhat red, but so is the one in the right eye.
    - I tried some eye drops (incl. artificial tears), but to no significant effect.
    - Since the injury, the left eye produces almost no rheum.

    Allergy
    - I have a diagnosis for mite allergy (resulting in frequent throat pain, no other symptoms).
    - I had used antihistamine-based cure (locally distributed generics, something like Zyrtec).
    - After the injury, while still using antihistamine, I realized (backwards, after I made an antihistamine break) it leads to a certain (additional) discomfort in the injured eye, feeling as if I could move within a smaller angle left/right with that eye (this was not happening when using antihistamine before the injury).
    - When I stopped using antihistamine (some six weeks ago), the throat problems did not surface back (so far).

    My questions:
    1) Does the fact that the pain is somewhat eyelid-related rule out DE?
    2) Does the fact that the eye feels different when using antihistamine indicate a link to allergy / autoimmune problem? (It looks a bit to me as if the immune system found a new battlefield - just a laical idea.)
    3) What can (and cannot) it be?

    I'll be helpful for any hints - and am ready to provide further info if needed.

    Thank you!

    PS Excuse my potentially strange English here and there, I'm not native and don't live in US.

    Tomas
    Last edited by Tomas2007; 02-Jun-2012, 14:10. Reason: additional info
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