take care of myself

I have been battling the dry eye and corneal erosion problem for quite some time now. I knew both eyes were dry, but until today I had only experienced an erosion (severe pain on waking and opening the eye) in my right eye.

This morning when I woke I could tell my eyes were very dry. I sat on the edge of my bed for a couple minutes before getting up. While sitting there I closed my eyes and opened them, and experienced pain in the left eye. It felt a lot like some sand had made its way into the eye. But I recognized the pain and sensation as a corneal erosion.

This one was a mild erosion as they go. The bad pain was gone after about 45 minutes during which time I kept the eye watered liberally with artificial tears. It wasn’t bad enough to contact my doctor since I already know what to do. But it was bad enough to make me resolve once again to pay more attention to the wholistic prevention plan outlined in this previous post.

Good grief. I was reading past entries on this topic and I see I might as well just say “ditto” to this entry.

Yep, I had another corneal erosion this morning. I had severe pain when I opened my this morning looking for my cell phone to shut off the alarm. I was trying to get to one year without an erosion as my doctor said that could mean smooth sailing for the future. I only made it to 6 months. But that’s still quite a bit longer than before. And this one was not as bad as some erosions in the past – the severe pain stopped in about an hour and a half. I have had them where the pain goes all day.

I wasn’t really surprised this happened though because my dryness problem is just plain out of control.

So here is my new action plan:

• Continue with eye gel and ointments at night
• continue with morning eye drops (artificial tears) and get better about taking them throughout the day
• install a humidifier next to my bed as soon as I can make room for it
• get serious about drinking more water
• look into taking fish oil capsules daily, or at least any day that I don’t eat salmon, tuna or sardines
• start eating a few almonds daily

My goal is to try and solve this problem without having to go on some prescription medication that I’ll be taking for life. I just emailed my doctor so we’ll see if he agrees with this plan.

Late this afternoon I had a little adventure in the office. I went to the supply room to pick up a few things. As I was leaving the room I dropped something so I bent down to pick it up. Then I stood up really fast – right underneath a wall-mounted shelf – and hit my head good and hard. The sound was loud and it startled me. I wondered “Wow, what was that?!” Then I realized my head hurt like crazy and that sound was me hitting the bottom of the shelf!

A coworker who has an office halfway across the floor came running over to check on me because she heard me hit from way over there. She said I shook the building (I think she was kidding about that!). Anyway, it hurt pretty bad and wouldn’t stop. So I did these things to take care of myself:

1. Made a makeshift ice pack out of a couple plastic sacks and ice machine ice.
2. Called Walter to let him know what happened and get a little sympathy.
3. Called a girlfriend who prayed for me and gave me a little more sympathy.
4. Called the consulting nurse line and got checked out (answered a ton of questions) and got some advice. I’m heading home where Walter gets to “monitor” me for 12 hours to make sure I don’t develop blurred vision or slurred speech or any odd behavior. That includes waking me up every couple hours in the middle of the night to make sure I can be easily awakened (oh boy).
5. The nurse said I could take ibuprofen so I did. Between that and the ice pack I’m feeling much better. I definitely have a lump on my head though.

Turns out I need 4 one-hour appointments for “root scaling and planing” (or deep cleanings) because of gum disease. Thankfully it’s covered by my insurance. I made the appointments today.

In May when I saw my eye doctor we were celebrating the fact that I had not had any eye pain in over a month. He told me I could probably cut back on the gel/ointment applications at night and if I could keep from having any erosions for a year I might be done with that problem, although dry eyes will always be with me.

I skated by until this morning. When I awoke and opened my eye I experienced the severe pain once again. I put tons of eyedrops in the eye and after about an hour the pain subsided.

My new plan is this: Go back to eyedrops 4 times a day (had slacked off to 2-3 times per day). Go back to gel and ointment applications before bed. And keep with that regime until I’ve been without erosions for a full year.

The pain is not fun and I want to prevent it as much as I can. I also don’t want to find myself in a position where the doctor might recommend some kind of surgical solution. I think prescription drops would be the next step, but I’m not sure and I would rather just not go there. Let’s stop this problem in its tracks.

It’s hard to believe that at my age I’m only now learning the importance of wearing a hat when outside in the sun for prolonged periods of time.

In my defense, it’s not that often that I spend much time outdoors, and when that time coincides with a sunny day. I’m a fanatic about sunscreen, but I generally don’t wear a hat.

Yesterday I spent a great day outdoors exploring Vashon Island. And not only flirting with heat exhaustion but burning my scalp where my hair parts. The consequences were mild, but it made me aware that I really need to get a hat I like and wear it in the summertime whenever I spend time outdoors in the heat.

I am very picky about what hats I wear and yesterday I found one I loved. But I didn’t pick it up right away because of the expense. When we came back later to get it, the booth was closed down and I couldn’t find the hat. Today I went to Ross and to Pike Place Market looking for hats and found none. I guess this is going to take some work. But I had better hurry because The Bite of Seattle is coming up on Friday!

I keep having recurrences of severe eye pain in the morning. It has happened 4 times since the beginning of the year. The other day’s was pretty bad so I emailed the doctor. He told me the next eye drop/gel to try before bed. I will add it to the ointment he already gave me. He said if this keeps happening we will have to try something more aggressive.

I am trying – doing well with the walking, but not so good with the sleep and doctor appointments.

Now I’m sick. My throat is very sore and my head feels all tight. I feel a little achy. Hopefully whatever this is won’t hang around long.

I keep putting off making doctor appointments. It makes my husband crazy. But this time there was no putting it off.

Yesterday I woke up, opened my eyes and experienced severe pain in the right one. Yowsa! Upon hearing my yell Walter asked “what did you step on?” I replied “Nothing, I just opened my eye!”

This has happened 3 or 4 times in the recent past. It’s quite painful at first and gets better after putting about 10 drops of artificial tears in the eye. But it’s still uncomfortable for the rest of the day. I expected I had a problem with dry eyes. Walter suggested that maybe my eyes were so dry my eyelid was sticking to the cornea.

This morning I went to the eye doctor and sure enough, Walter was right! I have dry eye syndrome and sometimes when I open my eye in the morning the lid is stuck and it scratches the cornea.

The solution? Lots of artificial tear eyedrops and putting in an ointment before I go to bed. I have a bit of a phobia about putting things in my eye but hopefully I can make it work. Not to wake up with pain will be worth it.

I haven’t been making any progress on this one and now my hubby is after me to get busy. Life just gets so hectic. My sister has been in the hospital for a week with complications from an emergency appendectomy a week before that. They just did more surgery today so hopefully things are straightened out and she can go home soon. But I find myself spending all my notifying family members of how everyone is doing.