talk to me about red eys and contact lenses please

[piratecat]

Ok, for 3 motnhs plus my left eye has been red. Ihave been to the eye infirmary, who said they (thank god0 could see nothing wrong, and thought it was prob over use of contacts.

WHY is it only in one eye then? I wear daily disposables, and apparently the red eye is due to lack of oxygen to the cornea. I admitted I had prob had them in for more than 10 hrs each day, but had been doing so for 4 yrs with no probs.

Firstly they gave me drops for conjunctivitis, which i used for 2 weeks, refrained form using contacts. No change. Went back and they gave me an antibiotic drop, used this for 2 weeks, and still no contac use for a further 4 weeks.

slight improvement. Put contacts in for an evenign, and next day red eye was back. BUT only this one eye.

any advice?? Have been readng that daily disposables whilst good for cleanliness, are not as good for letting oxygen reach the eye.

What would be better? Also my eyes have been feeling drier the past 6 months or so, and it was geting to be a prob sometimes getting the buggers out, so may indeed have irritated them. Should I use drops to make my eyes more (yeuch) moist ?

Does your eye hurt or itch when your contact lens is in? If so, is it better or worse when the lens is out?

Does it look like this?

hi it isn't as bad as that with regard to the red bit on the white of the eye.

As son as everyone started loking at it, /talking about it, i started to realsie that it had started to feel irritated over the months! Dry, um, and sometimes my eye socket would ache a bit.

It also looked to me as tho, the lid was heavier, but when i said this the eye bloke looed at me like i was mad.

They have told me to go back if it doesn't improve, but it did imporve a bit, until i popped a lens in. There is sometimes slight itchiness, but nothing major.

I don't know if i have to go back to the gp again , or ring the eye place direct?

they all seemed baffled. I was yacking away sayong my dad has bad eyes, has always had ingrowing eye lasehes, blepharitis, etc... and generally red eyes, hoping i was helping, but again, i felt like a fraud!!!

thanks for your help here!

Eye infection feels like your eye is very dry. It doesn't hurt and it doesn't itch. You keep rubbing it because it feels so dry.

Why haven't you been to an ophthalmologist?

Sorry I'm not familiar with UK system, but I don't understand why you would go to GP for an eye problem, and who on earth is an 'eye infirmary'?

I usd to get this in both eyes when I worked in a very dry atmosphere.

My eyes would be clear and white all weekend, come Monday evening, I would look like a zombie, bright red eyes. It was an office job, but must have been a very dry atmosphere.

Although I did get it in both eyes. Have you tried false tears at all?

Hi

Just wanted to say don't ignore this, definately go back to the eye infirmary or at least your gp. I had exactly the same symptoms for months, I also wear contacts. Apparently the dry eyes can be a sign of a problem with the tear ducts, especially since you describe the eye socket aching. So...a couple of weeks ago I spent a weekend in hospital on iv antibiotics, with periorbital cellulitus caused by a blocked tear duct!! The pain was not something I would wish on my worst enemy and I looked like someone had taken a baseball bat to my face. All from something as seemingly simple as a dry eye.

coteDazur, thats where you see the opthalmologist, at the eye infirmiry, it is an eye hospital, Saw the gp first to get a referal/appt straightaway, as they don't mess around when it comes to eyes.

jjandmum, i will ring the eye infirmiry.

how did they not pick this up in your eyes? what treatment had you had beforehand.

have you been back to your optician ? There are other types of lenses that let more oxygen through - it might be worth investigating those.

talk to your optician. Lack of oxygen to the eye can cause serious problems.

Are you very short-sighted? I had these probs with permanent soft lenses becasue they were quite thick

dailies are much better but you may need to look at how often/long you wear them

wearing soft lenses for 10 hrs a day 7 days a week might not be poss if you are susceptible to these things

Go back and get your lenses changed.. I use dailies, but will only have them in for about 8 hours and only 6 days a week.
I also let my eyes breath in the mornings and put lenses in last thing I do.

You can get extra moist lenes too. But go talk to your optition

Pirate, I think if it were keratitis the eye clinic would have picked that up. Are you shortsighted?

hi yes I am short sighted.

I read that focus dailes whilst being the most comfy, are the worst at being oxygen permeable. So perhaps I do need to re assess that, yet theoptician suggested them as i do have very sensitive eyes, and the solution is quite good for sensitive eyes. Yet I guess she meant out of the dailies it was the best.
I am not too au fait with other types of lens.

I have stopped waering my lenses daily, and have only used them 3 times in the past 4 weeks or so. I am wearing my glasses as we speak, and altho i loved wearing contacts for 4 yrs, have now got used to how i look in my glases again.

I will certianly not abuse the contacts, after what has happened.

I'd gone to the gp with my sore eye about 3 months ago and was prescribed drops as they just thought it was an infection. Soreness improved and I didn't really think much more about it, except for being aware of wearing my lenses for too long. I'm now waiting for an apointment to deal with the tear duct which I'm not looking forward to....something about sticking tubes in and squirting salt water down it and then a possible operation.

piratecat, tbh ( I am an optom btw!) there is not much to choose wrt oxygen permeability between any of the daily disposables.
Are you using the new Focus dailies, the Aquacomfort plus or the old ones? Most of my patients find the Aquacomfort plus more comfy.
If the red eye is more shortsighted than the other eye, the lens would be thicker, hence less oxygen. But if both are much the same, then there is no real reason why one would lack oxygen more than the other.
Really, I think you probably need to go back to your optom and discuss your options. The best lenses for oxygen transmission are actually silicone hydrogel lenses, which are dispensed on a monthly or 2 weekly basis but they can also have drawbacks which you would need to discuss.

blepheritis?

Blepharitis should be obvious to hospital staff, though and is usually present in both eyes.

have just heard that johnson and johnson are launching a silicone hydrogel daily in the uk this autumn - happy days!

ask your optician about air optix night and day (or similar) - they are monthly disposable ones. I use them - wear for a week and then clean overnight, throw away after a month. I think I remember my optician saying they are the most permeable lenses. Even if you only wear something similar on a daily basis it might make the difference.

Ask if you can have a trial for a few days.

Just a thought...if your eyes have been itchy/dry for over six months - has anyone mentioned Sjogren's syndrome to you? It makes wearing contacts tricky as your eyes stay dry and contacts can really inflame the situation.... Saying that, I have it & I've been a contacts wearer for 17 years. I've definitely had periods where putting the contacts in just makes one or both of my eyes red & painful - but I'm not about to give up! (love my contacts/hate my glasses!) I'm about to try my first pair of silicone lenses - hopefully they'll help!

i had this problem with the daily lenses. i was wearing them for approx 10 hours every day and my eyes were red and felt very dry..the lenses often felt like they were stuck to my eyes and i couldnt wear them at all when my hay fever started

i changed about 6 months ago to the continuous wear lenses, the ones you keep in for 30 days and i havent had a problem since, they feel much more comfortable and i only take them out maybe one day a week just to give my eyes a break, or to give them a quick clean with the solution

hi thanks for all the contact advice.

harleyd which ones do you wear now?
What solution do you have to use?

throkenholt, what is the solution you use for yours? Is it quite mild?

chip monkey, thanks, are theone mentioned by harleyd and throkenholt silicone hydrogel lenses then?

Are the monthly disposables better with the oxygen thing than dailies?

I am wearing focus dailies.

my left eye is the one having the prob and it is my worse eye. its -2.50 and my right is -2,25.

altho before my last test, in feb, Ihad -2.75 inthe left (for 2 yrs) and -2.50 inthe right.

i have very slight astigmatism in the left eye, but my glasses don't have the corrwction in them as apparently they couldn't hack it, i was dizzy and feeling sick form it.

Um, my left eye is the one that some bloodvessled detached when in about 1994, so i woke with a gert blob in my line of vision.

left ear has inthe past always got blocked by wax (sorry) and I had a migrainous episode, well a hugeone, in about 2001 and my left side of my face collapsed, and they though it was a stroke but it wasn't

so the left side to me, is odd.

just sayign anyhting here I can think of!!!!

sorry, gaurdianangel, i have not heard of that before. How long did it take for your diagnosis to be verified?

what were the symptoms?

did one eye start first, or both? thats the thing my, right eye is pucka.

throckenholts are silicone hydrogel and I hope^ harley's are because they are the only ones recommended for daily wear.
Pirate, did they take a swab from your eye to see if they could identify the cause of the infection?