Help! Can't stop eye inflammation. Any ideas?

[theggman]

Hi everyone,

I am not getting much help from doctor so I am calling n the wisdom of my dry eye zone friends for help.

I have Lasik dry eye from Feb. 2009. I was managing my dry eye all right until June 2014. I went on a wilderness camp in Wyoming. I spent four nights in a tent and my eyes started to water (I liked that) and my nose ran non stop. When I got home my eyes were really red and a little itchy, eyes still watering. I waited a week and it didn't go away so I went to the doctor and he gave me steroids. While I was on them my eyes did OK. When I went off them the inflammation remained. My night time Genteal gel or Mineral Oil ointments irritate my eyes and make them ever more red (this has never happened). I even got cysts on my eyes. Even on my worst days I never had these symptoms. My eyes look irritated all the time but especially at night or when I wake up. I'm using an ointment now with a little mineral oil Soothe XP for nightime. My preservative free drops during the day seem to not irritate my eyes. I have used Genteal Gel with no problems for 4 years now it makes my eyes burn and are red.

Bottom line. I had an allergy attack (never had one) and my eyes got red, inflamed and watered. Most of the allergy symptoms are gone now but the inflammation won't calm down. They are red and inflamed especially at night and in the morning after gel or ointment use. Lids red too. Overall my eyes are drier than before the problems. I've never had this before. Please help. How do I stop this inflammation and calm my eyes down back to normal?

Thank you!

[DryLondoner]

Sorry to hear about this. ggman

I'm assuming you've already tried cold compresses?

[theggman]

I have not tried cold compresses ywt. I have heard that they would be helpful. I am doing hot compresses to help with MGD. I'm trying to get my eyes to flow oil better so cold compresses are something that might be counter intuitive for my MGD. But if it brings my inflammation under control, I'll try it. I'll be sure to update this thread when i find some things that work. I know I can beat this. One interesting thing is that for nightime dry eye control, the thing that I have found that irritates my sensitive eye the least are ointments that have very little mineral oil (systane). I think it is about 97% petroleum and 3% mineral oil. I used Genteal Gel for years and now it causes big inflammation in my eyes. Crazy!

[No tears in ATL]

Cold compresses help me when I'm bad off. Those gels and ointments were always bad news for me and I think they are extremely irritating for a lot of people. That would be the first thing I would stop. Second, weening off any steroid drop needs to be slow. In the ween period, I find that tapering to one steroid drop in the morning for several days takes enough of the inflammation down, and then after a few days the withdrawal isn't so bad.

[theggman]

If you don't use gels or ointments at night, how do you keep your eyes moist or from sticking to your eyelids? I'd love to be off of them. THey are expensive. What do you use for nightime relief No Tears in ATL?

[theggman]

UPDATE
I've been paranoid about long term use of steroids so I stopped taking them. I started to clean my eyelids every morning in the shower with baby shampoo. It started to work. My inflammation came down. My eyes till seem irritated but no where near the level before. They are clear by afternoon when they would stay nasty red all day. The worst is at night when I put in gels and ointments to keep my eyes moist, they still get red but recover now during the day. The cleaning of my eyelids has DEFINITELY worked.

[No tears in ATL]

When I first suffered dry eye, eyelids would stick. My doctor recommended the gels. It was a disaster. The key was getting inflammation under control, which was accomplished with steroid drops. As I recall, there was a weening period from the gels and it was not pleasant, but my point is that artificial therapies, aside from steroid drops, made me worse. It is a very individual thing.