Blepharitis advice

[Rockingthestocking]

I have had awful eye infections for the last 6 weeks and Dr diagnosed me with blepharitis, dry eye syndrome and infections. I have antibiotics and steroids but am in agony and look shocking, and my vision is dreadful. I'm hopeful I'll see an improvement soon, but I wondered if anyone else has blepharitis and could offer any support or advice?
Took me weeks to get a doctor to see me due to Covid, which is understandable, but I am very worried the delay may have caused permanent damage. Dr yesterday didn't reassure me that it would be back to normal, just improved.

You have to keep cleaning your eyelids with blepharitis, even when you don’t have an active flare up or it tends to come back. My optician has advised to just clean at least once a day with blephasol.

I had a bad flareup of this last year. Eye infection wouldn't shift for weeks, backwards and forewards to the eye hospital and was eventually refered to the eye clinic.

Went to the eye clinic and he laughed when I said I asthma, exzema, hayfever and oral pollen syndrom and said "well what do you expect?" By the time I got to the eye clinic my vision was better than average.

I've had a couple of little falre up since then, but nothing major.

I've had blephritis now for over 10 years

It's pure hell.

I ended up seeing a dermatologist who prescribed me really strong steroid cream. Said don't tell your Pharmica for your eyes.

It worked amazingly. I only have once a year bad flare up. I use this cream for mine

You need to find a specialist. I found the eye hospital were crap. Kept telling me to clean with baby shampoo. Didn't ever work

Some of the Facebook groups are amazing. They really know their stuff.

I wish you the best. It's horrid. It really is.

The hot compresses never worked for me.

There's also some Google's you can get to wear overnight. But they are super expensive. Sadly it's really not well looked after on the nhs.

I've never been told the bicarbonate one though. I'm going to try that!

I had to stop all make up for over a year. Nothing on my eyes. But then mine went undiagnosed for years.

I have ordered an eye mask you heat in the microwave so we'll see how that goes. I have awful patches of dry flakey skin on my scalp, like cradle cap, and the same round my nose and patches on my forehead. I am no beauty that's for sure!! I've tried various diets, exercise, creams etc but there seems to be no pattern to flare ups. I wonder if my eyes are to do with stress , I'm not coping well with the lockdown and I've also put on at least 2 stone since Jan but the weight gain is cos I quit smoking in Dec. Go me for giving up smoking, but bleurgh for the weight gain. I was a size 14 and now a good 18!!! I do wonder if it's all connected but would have thought the benefits of not smoking would have outweighed it.

Warm compress. I bought a gel heated eye mask from Amazon, it is amazing.

I also found the gel eye drops worked better than the liquid drops.

You’ll love the microwave mask. I only need 11 seconds in the micro to get it so it’s got it burning and I wear it for ten minutes.

Then it’s straight to cleaning my eyes with round makeup style cotton wool pads. One eye at a time, one pad per eye, it’s important!

Dip in comfortably hot water, close eye, and rub pad along the lash line from tear ducts towards the cheek on top and bottom lashes. Rinse. This removes microscopic gunk that’s built up there. (Don’t touch the eyeball by mistake). This is only to clean the skin where the lashes come out as there are natural lubricating fluid channels you can’t see in there which need to have their exits cleared!.

Then rub pad vertically from top of eyelid (from on top of eyeball I mean, not up near the eyebrow) down towards lash line. This squeezes out the lubricating fluid that couldn’t get out of the inside of the eyelid due to gunk build up in the lash line that you just cleaned (the gunk which is now warm and runny thanks to the microwave treatment, this is why it works so well). Then rub from just under the eye vertically up to the lash line of the lower eyelid to push any trapped gunk inside up and out onto the lash line. Clean away along the lash line from tear duct towards cheek again.

Repeat multiple times. So each time you clean the lash line and squeeze the lubricating fluid from the upper eyelid and lower under eye area to the lash line and then wipe it.

Discard cotton pad and use a fresh one. Use fresh hot water also if you are using a container so it’s not contaminated from the first eye. Or just rub the fresh cotton of under hot tap.

It does work. But once you get dry eye it will never fully go away. I’m sure it’s hormone related too. Mostly seems to happen to women in their peri-menopausal years?

It's from the mites that live in your eyelash follicles. Google demodex mites honestly.

...and the older you are the more likely you are to have them. Honestly my stepmother ia always complaining about it and doing stuff with bicarb and warm water to her eyes.

In my opinion a general parasite killer taken orally would get rid of it in week. I proofread a fascinating thesis all about this. There seems little point in telling people it seems they don't want to hear it because it's so gross.

Blepharitis is horrible. My son had is about 3 years ago and it is still underlying now and flares up occasionally. Microwavable heat pads are good as they stimulate the glands. You can buy wipes or blethergel at an opticians. You can buy the mask and wipes etc on Amazon. Use the mask as instructed.
Be aware that you can lose your eye lashes, my son did that is how bad his got [ they do grow back.]
He has an underlying health condition so I think it affected him more than others.

@Destroyedpeople i completely agree with you but i cannot get my GP to prescribe one!