Scratched Cornea

I didn't get any sleep the night before last.  I awoke early in the night during a dream about having a throbbing scab on my eye.  When I awoke from my couple of hours of sleep, I quickly realized that the painful eye was not just in my dream.  My eye was actually throbbing in my waking life.

I shouldn't really call it "throbbing" because the frequency of the throbs was much slower than you think of when you hear about throbbing pain.  It was really a ten second extremely painful period followed by about 30 seconds of very little pain.  Although a slow throb, it continued at this frequency and severity which made sleep impossible.

I got up immediately when I awoke from this dream so I could check my eye.  It was all red, irritated, but I saw no obvious problems.  For a little while, I assumed that perhaps I was developing Conjunctivitis.  I washed my eye with eye wash and then used some Natural Tears.  Both of these products stung terribly.  

After lying in bed, awake and reading for a bit, I went back into the bathroom to check under my eyelids a bit more carefully.  This time, I did a tiny speck of something light in color under my lower lid.  I then used the eye wash again making sure I cleaned out under my lower lid.  The upper lid was a bit more difficult with gravity working against me.  Plus, it is difficult to crane my injured neck (extensive vertebra and disk problems) in a way that allows me to view under my upper eyelid.  I squirted the eye wash upward as best I could anyway.  Again, more terribly painful stinging each time I gently squirted the eye wash in my eye.  

I still wasn't sure if this was a scratched cornea due to a tiny speck of something getting in my eye or if I was developing conjunctivitis at this point.  All I knew is that I could not sleep. 

My nose was running profusely as well so I was wondering if maybe this was all some sort of allergy-induced conjunctivitis since the pollen is heavy in our yard.  It is so heavy that you can actually see it in the air.  Just in case, I decided to take some extra mast cell medications as well as some extra allergy medications.  At the very least, I wanted to slow down the runny nose that was flowing like a waterfall.  

In hindsight, I think the throbbing pain in my eye was causing my eye and my nose to run just like when you get bopped in the nose.  No conjunctivitis has developed more than 24 hours later so the assumption is that I scratched my cornea.

I never did get back to sleep the other night.  I read through the night and I got up with Sheila when her alarm went off for work.  At that point, I took some Aleve in an attempt to get the throbbing in my eye to subside.  By 10am, I was able to sleep for a couple of hours so that was good.

I had lunch, added more medications, cleaned out my eye again, more Natural Tears in my eye, and then I slept away the afternoon and awoke for dinner.  When I got up for dinner, I went through the same routine again...  added more medications, cleaned out my eye, more Natural Tears and I added some anti-histamine eye drops too.  The frequency of the throbbing had slowed considerably at this point but the pain was still there.

I was now getting a ten second period of pain once every ten minutes or so.  I couldn't figure out if there was something I was doing that was causing the pain.  Nothing ever seemed the same...  focusing on something close, or something far away, or moving my eye in one direction, or the other...  nothing seemed the same when the pain returned.  The frequency was far slower so that was good.  I think the amount of pain had lessened too.  

When I laid down in bed for the night, the pain increased a bit again.  I couldn't sleep on my right side because then weight was on the right side of my face on the painful eye.  I alternated between sleeping on my left side and on my back.  Sleep was difficult for the first few hours because my eye was throbbing again and at the original frequency.  I eventually managed to get about six hours of sleep though.

On the positive side, my eye is feeling a bit better this morning.  I still have pain but gently washing out the eye wasn't as painful this morning.  None of my eye drops were painful either.  I still have a dull pain but it is tolerable.  So, I believe this scratched cornea is healing.