Excrutiatingly painful "gritty" eye

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

Basically I want to know if I need to worry...

This happens occasionally:

I wake up at about 4AM with a feeling of dread that it is happening again.

The upper left corner of my left eye has what feels like a huge lump of pointy grit in it. It is incredibly painful, eye weeping buckets, can't avoid moving my eye so scratches which causes even more pain. So sore can't open eye, or face light.

Try to hold eye still and gradually drift off to sleep as pain lessens. By the morning there is still a dull ache to remind me of the events of the night before, but this gradually fades.

The first time it happened I was totally shitting myself so got up and woke up DP etc. No redness in eye, nothing visible in eye. Washing out with saline solution made no difference.

Is this a doctor or optician thing? Can I just ignore it (prefered option :) )

Waking up in the middle of the night with eye pain could be a number of things but perhaps top of the list is something called corneal erosion syndrome.

This is disorder when the outermost cells of the cornea (the clear window of skin at the front of the eye) aren't stuck down as well as they should be.
This results in them being rubbed off during Rapid Eye Movement sleep.

Thus pain.

You need to go to an opticians to confirm it (after an attack is best), get a diabetes check at your G.P. or Pharmacist (it's more likely in diabetics) and then get to grips with some treatment.

Mild cases (not in reference to pain but how often you get it) are best dealt with lubrication used when going to sleep (an ointment, such as lacrilube, is best).
More severe cases might need a bandage contact lens or more invasive options.

You said occasionally, so lubrication should be your first port of call.

All of this assumes MN diagnosis works, so get it checked properly.

Does that make sense?

That was a fantastic answer! The only thing is I didn't think the cornea went that far back if you see what I mean, the pain is more to the top left of the eyeball, not over the pupil/iris.

But now you mention it, the pain is very like when my cornea didn't heal properly after surgery.

Thanks for the help, will try to organise trip to optician :)

"But now you mention it, the pain is very like when my cornea didn't heal properly after surgery"

You've had laser surgery?
For refractive reasons?

I'm afraid certain methods make corneal erosion more likely.

Oh, and the referred pain is due to the path of the corneal nerves.

Similar to left arm with hear attacks.

yup, had surgery several years ago - the sort where they Don,t slice the eye. Only a very recent problem though. You sound as if you know your stuff- do you reckon optician or laser surgery place under their life time aftercare? Thanks v much for your help :)

If the latter doesn't charge, great.

They should also have a slight edge on technology.

it is possible to get wierd virus's in the eye that can give it a gritty feeling

I don't know about weird but there is a whole range of viral eye disease.

There is also a wide range of disorders which can give you gritty eyes.

Best head to an optician and get checked.