Blepharitis sufferers only please

[Helenahandkart]

Can anyone recommend an eye cream please? My eyes are so puffy and swollen, with big bags and dark circles. I always look like I’ve been crying.

I’ve just wasted £28 on an Origins eye cream which I can’t use because it irritates my eyes and makes them even more swollen and weepy. Everything I try exacerbates the symptoms.

There must be something out there for us blepharitis sufferers.

(I do regular compresses/massage/eye drops to alleviate it, and it makes no difference)

Boots do a foam cleanser specifically for blepharitis. I found that helps.

www.boots.com/boots-pharmaceuticals-blepharitis-eye-lid-foam-100-ml-10205857

Unfortunately, make up and eye creams are trial and error. I have also used hay fever drops to get the swelling down.

www.boots.com/beauty/skincare/facial-skincare/moisturiser/eucerin-urearepair-replenishing-face-cream-urea-for-dry-skin-50ml-10022067

This made mine a lot better within a day!!

You can use your eye cream on your neck under your chin. Sounds a bit mad but at least it won’t be wasted.

Have you been to you gp?

Blephasol and hot compresses to clean and nothing on my eyes at all was the only to keep it at bay and eventually the dry skin cleared up too.

Please go to your GP and get a prescription for an antibiotic/steroid cream like Fucidin. I get blepharitis every so often and can't use any type of eye cream until the initial inflammation is cleared up with antibiotics. Once it's on the mend, I'm good with things like Cerave eye cream or No.7, but not when my skin's swollen and raw.

I echo the earlier post to say don't use any creams until your eye has recovered. I actually found creams & drops exacerbated my blepharitis. The only thing that cleared it was using a drop of Johnson's baby shampoo in cooled boiled water ( as hot as you can bear it). Massage this up to 3× daily using a cotton bud over the inner & outer eye margins. Also Blephasol is also good. After your eyes have settled down Cerave eye cream is non irritating. But on no accounts used creams with SPF near your eyes.

I second this. Specsavers told me to use baby shampoo and if I wore mascara, buy the disposable brushes that you can throw after one use. It helped! I use anti wrinkle cream on my eyes as I've found it's the most gentle.

Johnson’s baby shampoo diluted in warm water really does work.

My mum has this and uses blephaclean wipes, she says only thing that really helps when she has a flare up.

I use optase. Baby shampoo worked for a while but now that causes a reaction, too!

If have a flare up, blephaclean wipes are what works best for cleansing, I simply cannot tolerate anything else. Best to see GP an antibiotic may be necessary. I couldn't use any creams near the eye at all during a flare up

Sorry to hijack your post, but what mascara do you use? I have used No 7 for years and as a contact lens wearer it was fine. However, I no longer wear lenses but my eyes seem to water constantly. Optician said all is clear with regard to any infection. TIA.

I bought myself a pug in heated eye mask. I use it daily for 10 minutes. Since I started, my eyes have been so much better. Prior to getting this, I used to use hot compresses but found my skin was very sore due to the water.
I actually use eye cream from Aldi, it’s excellent. I also bathe my eyes in baby shampoo once a day, and use a hot cloth cleanser from Aldi to cleanse my face and eye make up.

The Blephaclean wipes are the best. I think they are cheaper on Amazon unless Boots are doing an offer on them.

Optase protect has worked well for me. If I use it as soon as I get a sense something is not right, after a hot flannel, it seems to stop it developing further. It is an antibacterial spray for the eyelids.

Thanks for all the advice.
I think I may have confused the issue by not giving enough info in my initial post.
I have chronic posterior blepharitis caused by meibomian gland dysfunction. It doesn’t flare up. It’s permanently there, causing dry eyes that water constantly.
I’m under the care of an eye consultant for this and other conditions, having already seen my GP and four different opticians. They’ve told me the only treatment is hot compresses to unblock the glands. It’s not bacterial or infected, and I don’t get crusty eyes. When I wrote that my eyes were weepy I meant they are watery rather than having weeping sores or anything.

I already use hot water compresses, a hot eye mask, wipes to clean the lash line, eye drops to hydrate my eyes. Non of which have helped at all in unblocking the glands so the problem persists. In fact all of the treatments - which I’ve been doing for almost a year - tend to make my eyelids swell even more. I stopped wearing any make up or skin creams a year ago, in case they were making it worse, but nothing has changed.

I’m not trying to fix the blepharitis itself - as that seems to be impossible. I’m just trying to find a way to de-puff my eyelids a bit so that I look a little less gruesome.
I was hoping to find some kind of cream or something that wouldn’t worsen the blepharitis, rather than a cream to fix the blepharitis iyswim?

I know that people use witch hazel or piles cream for swollen eyes, but I thought that fellow blepharitis sufferers might have found an eye cream etc that doesn’t worsen the condition and makes eyelids a bit less swollen

@Lilsoph I was advised to wear a tubing mascara. Clinique do one, as do Poppy Sloane. They stay on even when your eyes water madly. You remove them by massaging the lashes with warm water so they’re really easy to take off.

Thank you all for the tips.

Intense Pulsed Light IPL can really help with MGD - it’s expensive though but really helps me.

Thank you for the advice on tubing mascara Helena. I will look into them. Hope your situation eases soon.

I suffer from repeated chalazion that have needed surgery so not the same type of blepharitis as you.

I wash with foaming cleanser and hot flannel, blephasol and use my usual day or night cream on my face (not my eyelids though). I try not to wear much make up in case of infection.

This stuff:

SVR PALPEBRAL Ultra-Soothing Eye Cream for Dry, Hypersensitive, Itchy, Flaky Eyelids Prone to Irritation, Eczema, Blepharatis, Steroid-Free Formula, 15ml amzn.eu/d/65Sa2ya,

it's amazing.

Do you mean the gland block and you get lumps that look puffy and a bit like a chalazion? If so I can recommend the Peep club eye wand. Its a wand that you use to massage the puffy bits and it heats up to help unblock lumps under the skin. It takes a bit of dedication but does work.

I use super-pure moisturisers like diprobase and doublebase.

Thanks for all these great tips - I’m going to cross my fingers and work my way through them.
So I don’t have any lumps caused by the blocked glands. It’s more that my entire eye area is swollen and puffy. I look really old and tired, and if I didn’t have blepharitis I would be looking for an eye cream to de-puff everything (hence the expensive Origins gamble). I guess I was hoping that there was a de-puffing option, like a normal person would use, that wouldn’t react with my rubbish eyes.

Interesting! I’m going to ask my optician about this tomorrow. How often do you need to have it done? I quickly googled and saw a place that recommends 4 sessions initially, and then a yearly top up, but haven’t had time to investigate further yet.
It is very expensive but presumably you think it’s worth it? Can you recommend a practitioner please?
I would so love to be able to go outside without my eyes streaming so much that I can’t see where I’m going. And wasting hours every day doing ineffectual compresses.
thank you