eye pain: signs versus symptoms (article)

[browneyes]

Here is a worthwhile article by the doctors at the Boston Foundation for Sight who seek to understand eye pain - rather than dismiss it in the absence of corneal staining.

www.bostonsight.org/Articles_Physicians/ocularsurface2009.pdf

[east12]

Interesting read, this might be able to explain alot for me.

[autumnn]

I found this article to be very detailed and well written. However, it is frightening at the same time because how can one really know if they have corneal neuralgia? It sounds like long term pain can cause this and if so the damage can be permanent. Also, it doesnt sound like there is a lot one can do for this problem as the medical field doesnt seem to understand it very well.

[odydnas]

Great paper. But I second autumn...corneal neuralgia is frightening...esp for many of us here with symptoms but no signs. There is no clear cut methodical way of diagnosing it, and it seems like the only treatment availabe, stated by the paper, is scleral lenses, which won't even do much for people whose corneal neuralgia is well established. As we all know, when we have corneal pain, we go from doc to doc, not figuring it out what's wrong. I have a feeling that by the time most people get to BFS and find out they have corneal neuralgia, their disease is already established and the sclerals will not provide them enough comfort.

I hope current practitioners read this paper and take it seriously, and that more studies will be done on corneal neuralgia, so that patients with this disease can be quickly identified and treated with sclerals to slow the progression.

I really hope no one on this board has corneal neuralgia...there are so many more options for treating DE than corneal neuralgia.

[autumnn]

I took this article to my dry eye specialist. He doesnt think I have corneal neuralgia because I have clear signs of rapid tear breakup time/poor tear film- but still, who knows? It is hard to not wonder if one has this. If anyone knows more about the signs/symptoms/diagnosis please post!

[bernmee]

Autumn...what is your TBUT, I thought you were close to an 10?

B.

[autumnn]

Hi Bernadette- Today I was between an 8-10 (yay!). The week before I was a 5 or a 6 (ugh). I had been crying a lot that day though so maybe that was part of it. This last week I have been using Freshkote- maybe that is helping the tear film. The right eye seems fine again most of the time and the left burns.
I am very interested in the neuralgia though, I wonder if any members have been checked out for this?? I read that some of the risk factors are Accutane (I took that for a SHORT time 15 years ago), Lasik (had that in 1999), and ongoing dry eye pain (which most of us have). My eye pain started in 2005 out of nowhere....the docs all blame bleph and mgd. Now the idea of neuralgia is a bit intimidating....

[Teri]

Thank you for posting this article. It was very informative and interesting (and, yes, scary).

Teri

[eyecansee]

Dear Brown Eyes,

I owe you a million thanks for posting this article! I was in the Philippines when I started having increasing eye pain and started to wear swimming goggles to get through the day (regular moisture retention glasses were not enough). Finially my opthomologist there gave up on me and thought I was crazy in the head. My condition deterioted to the point that I could not go outside and had to cover my windows with towels -- meanwhile sweltering in the heat inside. Holding my eyes closed was not enough to stop the pain -- I had to cover them with a sleep mask and grope around my apartment like one who is blind. Despite all these efforts, I started to experience terrible pain.

I had given up internet searches months earlier, but one day in desperation I cried out to God, "Noone knows what is wrong with me! Oh God, please help me!" I sat in front of my computer, knowing I could only open my eyes for a minute or two and clicked on the Dry Eye Talk and immedietely my eyes were attracted to this article. First time I had gotten what I wanted in an internet search in 1 minute! It was the answer to my problem, and I went directly to the Boston Foundation for Sight with a sleeping mask over my eyes. Now you can see that I can even write this reply now! Thank you ever so much for posting this article! Thank you , thankyou, and thank you, for it lead me out of a darkness filled with pain to sight!

Eyecansee

[Martz22]

Has anyone found out more info regarding this? I'm pretty certain I may have this but want to hear how someone is treated and if they got better?

[mgshutterbug]

Corneal Neuralgia page would not open - too old I guess.

I just tried the link, and the page did not open, got an error message. Anyone else have this problem? I'll google corneal neuralgia - I also hope that anyone else who knows about it can fill me in. I am afraid that I have it to some degree because I have damage done by neurosurgery to the trigeminal nerve. I have anesthesia dolorosa, or at least that's what my 1st corneal specialist called it. My eye was anesthetized, but I still had sensation of pain, grittiness, burning, sense of foreign object in my eye. Now that I'm post surgery x 2 yrs, some of the nerves have regrown (some correctly, others not) and my affected eye symptoms have lessened somewhat, but the eye is still extremely uncomfortable. And flat out screams with pain in the cold, wind, heat. Anyhow, I hope that's not what I have, because at this point, it looks like sclerals are my only hope. I have MGD, EBMD, RCEs, impaired tear production by lacrimal glands. The botched neurosurgery also initially paralyzed half my face, and caused parathesias, pain. That, too, has improved somewhat, but is nowhere close to "normal".