Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion Helpful Tips dry eyes, blepharitis

thought this was a really good site in explaining things to me.

hope it helps others as well:

http://www.dryeyeinfo.org/Dry_Eye_In_Depth.htm#The%20Omega-3%20revolution

Very good site. I use the recommended Thera Tears, preservative free. Did have punctal plugs but they fell out (usually do after 6 months!) What he didn't say was to use LacriLube preservative free eye ointment for night time...black mark. LacriLube is a must for dry eye as stops lids adhering to corneas during the night! But mebbe LacriLube does not exist in the US? Anyways, need to use it.

But good info.

thanks molly

its much of your advice i do remember.

what i've been trying to understand, and need more reading, is the difference between the various causes of dry eyes, and this site was very good for that.

also reading blepharitis sites.

at the moment a bit confused, as this site, by describing how my eyes never hurt when i first wake up, but rather as the day progresses, then that sandy, gritty, painfulness gets worse and worse, and the more i use them, the worse they get. closing them, resting them, letting them "recover" is what helps.

and it also said washing them really is for anterior blepharitis. while other sites don't make the distinction. and my eye doc said to wash them, though he did tell me posterior blepharitis and dry eyes. did a test to determine the dry eyes. but it felt like he told me i had blepharitis because of the results of the dry eye test. and reading this site, sounds like more than one cause of dry eyes.

yes, i need to read more. need to ask the eye doc the finer questions now that i know what to ask.

but the artificial tears did seem to be doing their job, that and resting my eyes, and letting a flare pass. only seems to be a problem when in a flare, can go for months in between where the eyes are ok, for now, that's good.

will look into the lacrilube (or equivalent) for nighttime if needed.

sounds like you are not producing enough tears. mine seems to be more that they evaporate too fast due to not enough of that oil being produced (from what the eye doc told me). so maybe there's a difference in how to treat?

anyway, it was you who sent me out for the preservative free drops, so thanks for that! eye doc never mentioned, gave me a trial of systane with preservatives. but when i needed to replace them this fall, bought the individual usage preservative free ones.

thanks again for all your good advice!

you may recall that last summer, I had uveitis in my left eye, and then suddenly one afternoon my right eye joined the party with blepharitis. Crusty awful gunk, tearing constantly, could barely see out of that eye. I was nervous that it was something serious, so we once again made an emergency call to my eye doctor on the weekend. When I described the symptoms, he just told me not to worry, it was blepharitis, and that it was just an infection of the eyelid.

So we went out and got some of these:

OCuSOFT Lid Scrubs

the blepharitis was gone in 24 hours!

(the uveitis lasted for months)

Always surprises me when the ophtho doesn't mention the preservative free eyedrops. Same happens in the UK as well - put another lass right at the hospital (of all places!) Might be that your doc was 'keen' on the systane? Over here in France I have only ever been scripted for the preservative free.

As for washing eyes, read that site again, says to use warm cloth over the eyes, and that is exactly what my UK ophtho advised as well as. And excellent advice, very refreshing for the eyes.

Now the Thera Tears are quite viscous, good, but thicky-icky. So I also use just a plain preservative free eye wash during the day as well as the warm flannel when eyes are bad.

I get a lot of lacrimae, tearing. When really bad, my eyes are streaming. Horrible. As mentioned did have punctal plugs, but have'nt been able to get them replaced over here in France. But so far, apart from one ghastly flare of streaming a year ago my eyes have been reasonable in that regard, but are still very dry. As indeed is my mouth, nasal passages, throat, lungs - all the 'muscosal' places. Classic Sjogren's.

Hope you can find LacriLube over there. NOT available in France. They have a different eye ointment here, nasty stuff, very synthetic with synthetic Vit-E in it. Do not like it at all, and it stings, that's the preservatives of course. Whereas LacriLube is really soothing. Get supplies over from the UK. Sigh. Flippin nuisance.

But all kinds of things work for eyes. Thing is to try em all IF dry eyes. As for blepharitious, antibiotic eye ointments? Washing with special applicants - as Dow mentioned? Need to look at all the regimes and use whichever looks to be efficacous. Just be careful, tis the eyes. Gotta look after the eyes.

Cool! Thanks for the link.

Since I've been following doc's guidance for treating my blepharitis, it's gotten better. Did about 3 weeks of AzaSite and did the hot cloth over eyes, massaged them with dilute baby shampoo and switched to preservative free drops (Systane). I'm able to make it on warm cloths, massage and eye drops. Whew. It was certainly better than the gritty, painful, dry feelings that kept getting worse each day. And a relief that they didn't think it was Sjogrens.

thanks dow! that stuff really does look soothing, may have to give it a try.

though interesting that the site i found said, that for posterior blepharitis, which sounds like what i have since its the fast evaporation of my tears that the doctor used to dx the blepharitis, that washing the eyes is not the way to go. that that really is for the anterior blepharitis.

but still that product looks worth trying.

and yes, from listening closely to you (and others that have had the uveitis), am very thankful for the dry eyes as compared to the uveitis. dry eyes won't potentially damage my eye sight the way the uveitis can. and the uveitis sounds much more painful and much more difficult to function with, just from what i think i hear you all saying.

ah yes, not sure, maybe so they can hand out the bottles vs the individual servings. i'm still using systane, just individually packaged servings, preservative free. told the eye doc this, he thought it sounded like a good idea.

though after reading the various descriptions of products out there on that site, may decide to try another product. however, the systane helps, so maybe stick with that. though would another product work better.

also liked the info to use an entire serving for the eyes. as bathing the eyes, saturating them really important. so will do that in the future.

as for washing eyes, think maybe it was just the warmness of the water that was soothing, as it didn't seem to help to use baby shampoo, if anything that was worse i think. and yes, i do like the warm compresses, did find those to be lovely. but really just resting the eyes best for me. think its because while your problem seems to be lack of tear production, mine seems to be too quick of tear evaporation (as the test showed) due to that oil gland not working properly.

and not the anterior (bacterial) induced blepharitis, so no washing, no antibiotics. posterior due to malfunctioning oil gland, so the lubricating eye drops, warm compresses, and resting the eyes seems to be the things that make the most sense.

i just had no idea before i read this in depth link that there were so many varieties of "dry eyes" and "blepharitis". and so good to read how to tease the various conditions apart. like, the fact that anterior blepharitis hurts upon waking after eyes closed, but posterior blepharitis hurts more as the day wears on, and i was like "BINGO! that's me!" not the first description at all, but the second one absolutely!

so does your's appear to be anterior or posterior?

here's another link with some good info:

http://hcd2.bupa.co.uk/fact_sheets/html/blepharitis.html

and interestingly:




interesting that they mention people with psoriasis as a high risk group for this problem. makes sense now that mine flares with my arthritis flares: dry eyes / posterior blepharitis, mouth sores, arthritis, GI issues all flare together. once happening is coincidence, twice probably connected, over and over again, stronger and stronger correlation all the time.

anyway, fascinating to be able to tease this all apart. as which type of dry eyes, which type of blepharitis helps determine solution. not as generic as i had thought from what the eye doc said. too bad i found this right after going to him and not supposed to go back for two years. now i have all kinds of questions for him. oh well, as long as it never lasts for more than a few weeks at a time thus far with months of relief in between. if it becomes more chronic and those tricks don't cut it, then go back. though do wonder if an antiinflammatory drug that helps the entheses will also help the eyes. like when i started the zyrtec 12 years ago, my eye allergies went away with all the other allergies.

fascinating stuff. so good to find good information!

after 8 months, just got prescription for steriod drops. Started them last night, eyes do feel a relaxed but still sore.
Hate it, when they say oo may be its not related to AS... grrr...