Eye drop abuse - Please help!

[Guest]

Hi everyone,

Having a 'bad day' in regards to my eyes. I feel that my problem is entirely my fault and that I have damaged my eyes for life. If any one can help I would be extremely grateful.

Due to being misdiagnosed back in January I was told I had a variety of different eye related problems including viral conjunctivitis and allergies. I was put on three courses of FML drops, was recommended to use allergy eye drops and was eventually put on Maxitrol.

By the time I found out it was mild blepharitis my eye was really inflamed. I had six months of pouring (what I didn't realise at the time) harmful chemicals into my eye. The worse they got the more I put in until I was using 10 - 15 drops a day. A lot of them containing the preservative BAK.

By August my eye was covered in lots of thin red veins that were all working their way to my pupil. They looked horrific and I became housebound due to stress and anxiety.

It's been two months of going completely cold turkey - even from artificial tears as I realised I was overdosing on them as well. I have had plugs in and have done everything I possibly can to encourage my own eyes to heal naturally. I'm taking all the right vitamins, doing warm compresses and eye lid cleaning and have had plugs in.

My eyes are so so slowly responding to all this, the veins have faded slightly. Through research the only thing I can find that relates to my situation is 'rebound redness' the diagnosis however isn't clear, for some it takes weeks/months/years to recover - I read some comments that say their eyes have never been the same since abusing eye drops.

I am now in a real panic about my situation, I wasn't using vasoconstrictors as such but I was using an awful lot of eye drops (Golden Eye, Vita - Pos, FML drops, Optive eye drops etc) with harmful preservatives in. It's been half a year of abuse - is there a chance my eyes will ever get over this? Has anyone been through this themselves? Ophthalmologists cannot say whether they will/will not get better (I understand this is for their own protection and they cannot promise anything) but I am putting myself through hell and back thinking the worse.

If anyone can help I would be really grateful!

Claire

[BeckaG]

Hi Claire I know you wrote this awhile back, my naturopath told me to put cold camomile tea bags on my eyes for 15 minutes. Although it doesn't make the redness dissapear completely or permanently, for the few weeks I have now tried it I notice it reduces the redness about 50% for a good chunk of the day. Its worth a try, and who knows perhaps over time it can completely calm your red eyes eventually, I am hoping it will with mine and have been trying to do it once a day.

[No tears in ATL]

They may not fade completely (and I don't intend to sound not encouraging, trust me) but after all this time they may likely go to a light pink, as you mentioned, which really isn't noticeable to most people. Trust me: it's not. No one is looking. At worst, they think you have allergies or something. I'm just speaking from personal experience, since I have a spider webby pinguecala mass on one of my eyes. For anyone to notice it, they say they have to get REALLY close. Yeah, I surveyed a few people. : )

I know this is hard, but try to focus just on the healing for now. Do all the things that others here have suggested. It sounds like you are on the right track.

[Minni]

Hi Claire I know you wrote this awhile back, my naturopath told me to put cold camomile tea bags on my eyes for 15 minutes. Although it doesn't make the redness dissapear completely or permanently, for the few weeks I have now tried it I notice it reduces the redness about 50% for a good chunk of the day. Its worth a try, and who knows perhaps over time it can completely calm your red eyes eventually, I am hoping it will with mine and have been trying to do it once a day.

Makes sense - I happen to like teabags from OOLONG tea which has long been associated for use as skin detox. Except I don't press too hard - the grinds tend to be rough even thru the bag.

Also, Yogi offers a Skin Detox Tea which contains in it Rose Flavor & also Hibiscus.

I personally don't enjoy it - since you can't even detect a Rose Flavor.
Rose flavor is WONDERFUL but because its so expensive, you hardly see it anywhere anymore (unless in expensive areas?) The essential oil itself has long been substituted via geranium.

The wonders of Rose may be because it contains elements of both "sticky-sweet" as well as elements of "tangy". Tangy elements are penetrating.
Ditto "sweet & sour" - ditto "honey-lemon"

...in the same "syngergistic" vein, maybe Rohto Hydra eyedrops, and various skin creams & shampoo's are popular due to containing menthol.
Menthol contains both a "sticky-sweet-AND-COOLING" element as well as a "penetrating" element which enables the former to penetrate. Thus potent.

Similarly, Hot and Cold packs & tea bags can work the same way.
...COOL is calming-healing
...HEAT enables "penetration" then circulation via thinning-of-gunk

While i'm on a roll, maybe I'll put a version of this on the main board, for those who may be "locked-in" to the idea of either cold=good or hot=good or non-sweet=good and so forth.

[Minni]

Update

UPDATE:

I changed my mind about Rohto Hydra - now that I've tried it.

Never again! I trashed it.

My eyes tell me they're horrific for me. Then again, they caused me the same ill feeling that TheraTears did (pressure, heaviness, tiredness, sensitivity). My eyes are hyper-sensitive.

So I'm wondering if its the "cellulose" in both Theratears & Rohto-Hydra which is bad for me?

OR:

Maybe the menthol in Rohto worsens it even more. Not sure.