Help with conjunctivitis please

[DiscombobulatedAf]

Hi I’ve posted here for traffic as the health section is a little quiet.

I’ve been suffering with what doctors suspect is allergic conjunctivitis for almost two months now. I get allergy symptoms (itchy and watery eyes, itchy throat and runny nose) all year round but it’s usually very mild and an antihistamine sorts it out. This time round is awful. It usually lasts no more than a few days with the last major flare up back in 2015. My eyes are constantly watery, itchy and swollen. I spend all day taking antihistamine tables and eye drops but nothing helps. Moorfields said it’s likely allergic conjunctivitis and gave me steroid drops which made things worse so I stopped those. Does anyone have any ideas of what I can do to stop the suffering? I’ve bought an air purifier and vacuum regularly as I read it might be a dust mite allergy? I’m going to buy new bedding in case it is that. I’m stressed as my eyes are in constant agony and feel so tender from the itching and I have no idea what is causing it. It all started when a family member bought a real Xmas tree and it turned out I was allergic to it. Tree is long gone but symptoms are still there. I’m desperate and will try anything

Have you tried a nasal spray too? Beconase is one I think
What antihistamine tablets are you on?
Also have you tried bathing them with cooled boiled water? This helps me a lot when I have the same and I leave the warm pads on my eyes for a while.

Opticrom eyedrops should help.

I've been suffering too the last few months and this is not a normal thing for me. Went to see the pharmacist at Boots who sent me to the Optometrist. She was very helpful. Suggested it could be dry eyes (watering and burning is a sign) and I got the appropriate drops.
May be worth speaking to pharmacist/optometrist?

Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve tried beconase but that hasn’t helped much. I’m currently taking loratadine antihistamines. Will try the cool compress to see if that helps and will look into the opticrom drops too

Yes actually why I had ‘dry’ eyes that actually means burning streaming tears of fire. I got dry eye drops for that

Hi @PammieDooveOrangeJoof sorry your last message isn’t clear. Did loratadine cause your dry eyes?

@DiscombobulatedAf

Hi *@PammieDooveOrangeJoof* sorry your last message isn’t clear. Did loratadine cause your dry eyes?

Sorry no. I meant I have suffered from Dry eye before and used eye drops for it. Not sure which ones. I didn’t realise it was dry eye as my eyes were streaming and burning.

I have histamine intolerance so take antihistamines daily but still needed the drops for dry eye.

Systane infected eye drops. Can you also strip back your skincare to cetaphil cleanser and something like epaderm moisturiser. Sometimes if something triggers a histamine reaction there is a period of lots of other (previously tolerated) things causing a further reaction. Stripping back everything that goes near your face would be my starting point along with course of eye drops.

How old are you?
I guess if you're under Moorfields, they have excluded Sjogrens Syndrome?
I would have thought steroid eye drops would have helped with allergic conjunctivitis, is it worth trying them again and persevering with them a bit longer, otherwise, I would go back to Moorfields.
Best of luck, it sounds horrible.

Did the steroid drops have a preservative in them or were they individual doses? I have seen patients have an allergic reaction to the eye drops that were supposed to be helping with their eye symptoms, and it's unlikely steroid drops would have made anything worse unless you were allergic to the drops or had an active eye infection

Ah ok thank you @PammieDooveOrangeJoof that makes sense. I’ve been using my dry eye drops but they sting sometimes. I’m mid-late twenties and moorfields didn’t exclude sojgrens but I didn’t have swabs or cultures taken. I will scale my products back for a bit as an ointment I’ve been using for years gave me puffy eyes a few days ago. The steroid drops were called allergan but I’m not sure if they contained a preservative

Contact Moorfields and tell them steriods not helping .

Thanks everyone, I’ve decided to go back to moorfields today and ask them to swab my eye and hopefully do more tests