Any idea's whats up with my eye - conjunctivitis ??

[3cutedarlings]

Woke up the morning with and my upper eye lid is really swollen, my eye balls a little red and feels gritty. Its not gunky but its a little runny. I also have like a tension head ache just above my eye.

I there anything i can buy at the chemist?

[beatiebow]

Optrex (for infected eyes) is available at the chemist. I have used it in the past and it worked.

[3cutedarlings]

Thanks bb just of to chemist now

[HeadFairy]

BB's right. BTW conjunctivis is a generic description for a red and sore eye. I thought it was an actual illness that could be cured with a specific medicine. Not true, it's just a general term to describe a sore eye. Very irritating. I get it all the time as I've got very dry eyes so I'm very prone to infections. Saline eye baths are good too... every hour if you can manage it until the redness goes.

[3cutedarlings]

Well i couldnt get any of the over the counter stuff cos im BFing all of them said to seek advice of a doctor before using, so all i have is some basic eye drops.

I dont think i actually have conjunctivitis the white of my eye isnt all that red and it just runny rather than gunky iyswim. But its still very swollen and quite painfull.

Can anyone recommend any natural remedies that i could try?

[Ledodgy]

Breast milk. Honestly it works a treat.

[3cutedarlings]

blimey ive done this with the DCs as some through babyhood, but will it work on my eye balls to? lol

[Ledodgy]

Yes. It's a natural antiseptic and is sterile.

[3cutedarlings]

Great stuff!! thankyou, think i had better get a cup or something to express into, dont think my aim is good enough to get it in my eye

[Ledodgy]

[prettybird]

I had a problem with my eye which I thought was conjunctivitis. my eye felt really scratchy, watered like hell and had frequent stabbing pains. I ened up taking my contact lens, but as I was down south on business couldn't do anything about it. When I got back to Glasgow airport, I went to Boots and asked to see the pharmacist. She said, IIRC, that becasue it wasn't gungy, it wasn't conjuncitivitis and was more likley a scrached conrea and wouldn't give me anything and recommended that I go and see an optician or A&E. As it was c8pm, I tried to see an optician in Braehead, but as I didn't have an appointment (and I had my eyes tested within the previous 6 months) they wouldn't see me . Went home and chekced with my neighbours, who are GPs and they said, yes, I needed to go to A&E.

It turned out I did have a scratched cornea but it was fairly shallow and was given antibiotic drops and told that if it hadn't started getting better within 48 hours, I was to go to the A&E at the specialist opthalmic hopsital in Glasgow.

Fortunately it did

[prettybird]

I ended up taking out my contact lens

[3cutedarlings]

sounds very similar to my problem prettybird, did you eye lid swell up to?

[3cutedarlings]

your eye lid

[prettybird]

Can't remember for sure - it was last October. I think my whole eye area ended up being quite swollen - bit embarassing, as the following day I had to fly down to Manchester for the evening and the day after for some high level meetings with the company that had just taken over the one I worked for (all the account managers of high value accounts had to present to the equivelent senior managers in the new company).

I will admit to having been vain enough just to wear my contact lens in the "good" eye and chose to blind(ish) in the other one, rather than wear my very old fashioned glassed

But if you are getting losts of stabbing pains, then you really do need to go to A&E so that that can use thier special machine to see if there are any scratches.

[moosemama]

Is it your upper lid? Could be a chalazion (pronounced coo-lay-zee-on) my ds2 suffers from these and as they are caused by a problem with the glands that secret moisturising fluids onto the eyeball it causes him to have sort of gritty eyes which can be a bit gunky around the lash line.

If it is a chalazion you will need to see your gp. Topical treatments are ineffective, as its an encapsulated infection so you will need oral ABs.

[3cutedarlings]

Ok, ive rang the GP out of hours service and they have prescribed me some AntiB steroid drops.

Thanks again

[HeadFairy]

Glad you've got it fixed... the scratched cornea thing reminds me of when I left a badly scratched cornea far too long once. I kept putting my lenses in, I was young and stupid so I wasn't terribly good at cleaning my lenses either, and I got a really bad infection... I couldn't wear lenses for 6 months and was left with quite bad scarring on my eye. But by far the worse thing was the corneal scrape I had to have done at A&E to diagnose the type of infection If good old Brolene drops or antib drops don't fix it in a few days go back and don't leave any infection to run riot as I did!

[3cutedarlings]

Its getting me down now, the swelling has got worse my upper upper lid is now swollen as well as my lower upper lid iyswim (although DH says it look abit better ) it doesnt feel as scratchy tho. I feel so low about it, my eye looks deformed . Id also forgotten how much i hate my eyes messed with i dont wear contacts for this reason. The meds i have is a cream makes me feel sick when i put it in.

[HeadFairy]

Poor thing, that sounds rotten. The really nasty infection I had a few months ago caused both lids to swell up, I looked like I'd been punched. My actual eyeball got all puffy too as it filled with fluid

The GP said the conjunctivitis (ie redness and soreness) was probably caused by a virus which it was why it was quite resistant. I probably caught it as ds had a bad cold at the time and was really snotty, and I was probably not as good with the hand hygiene as I should have been, probably passing it in to my eyes after I'd been wiping snot away from him.

Anyway, the optician across the road from me said the eye drops are good, but the best thing you can do is bathe your eye in saline every hour for 24 hours. You'll need an eye bath or something similar (an egg cup?) and some saline, which you can make up from cooled boiled water with some salt added. Just put some in the eye bath, place the eye bath over your eye, tilt your head back and open your eye. It will sting, don't make the saline too salty, but it works pretty well too.

To try and reduce the swelling, after you've done the eye bath, wrap an ice cube in a flannel and put it over the whole eye area for about 15 mins. Make sure you don't share towels and flannels with anyone in the family, and maintain good hand hygiene.

HTH

[alypaly]

if your eyeball is sore too, u have conjunctivitis.... get some chloramphenicol eye drops from the chemist and put them in every 2 hours for the first 2 days an then reduce for the next 5 days