Wind In My Head: Egging the eye
Wind In My Head
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Egging the eye
Updated as of 2137 hrs 13 May 2009I hate eye make-up and eye make-up hates me. It doesn't matter that my mother says I have nice Peranakan eyes (whatever those are!) that are great canvases for eye make-up. Every time I put on eye make-up something bad happens.
On Friday I had to because I had a photo shoot and it required mascara and eye shadow. Eye shadow is the lesser of the two evils so I use that a tad bit more often. But mascara. I think it's got something to do with sensitive tear ducts and whatever other lubricant producing pores I have in my eye.
Anyway, on Sunday night through the night, I began to increasingly feel like either something had bitten me on the eye or someone imaginary had hit me hard in the eye. There was the tell tale bruised feeling as well as a red-rimmed lid. The doctor subsequently confirmed that one of my tear ducts had gotten blocked and was therefore infected. The cure was simple. Compress and antibiotic ointment.
The problem was after the antibiotic ointment, the swelling looked worse. I now looked like Rocky Balboa after he'd fought the Russian Dolph Lundgren and it itched! Turns out, my penchant for antibiotic allergies applies to ointment too and my eye really didn't like the ointment much. All that was left to do was to try and alleviate the swelling with compress.
Anyone who has kids or has had sport injuries knows that compress in the form of a wet towel whether cold or hot is ineffective. It loses its heat or coolness too quickly. When I was breastfeeding and had mastisis, the best heat compress came in the form of a milk bottle filled with hot water because it was cylindrical and I could roll it. I needed the same thing for the eye and was advised to try a hard boiled egg. Not because it will seep the toxins from the eye as some believe but because it is soft, can be rolled around and traps heat well.
Of course, Olie was plenty grossed out especially because I said that it was nice to be able to eat my remedy after I was done with it. But hey, at least, I hadn't put a raw steak on my eye which was supposed to have even better healing properties.
I have however, admitted that the egg can only take it that far and am going back to the doctor to possibly get a jab to reduce the swelling and the itchiness. It's not a nice prospect but it sure beats feeling self conscious, unglamourous and paranoid that everyone thinks I am full of infectious germs.
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I sent the above picture of my eye to my doctor brother and his immediate message was "Go to the GP, get a shot". This coming from my brother, who was trained by the "take Panadol" school of medicine, was enough to send me running straight to the clinic.
What ensued was the most painful procedure of my life. This coming from someone who has had 4 wisdom teeth extracted in one sitting, corrective eye surgery (Not LASIK), a laparoscopy, several surgeries in the name of having the kids including the C-section and NONE of them came close to the pain I felt today. It turned out that infected duct was in infected in two different places and it was in dire need of draining. This was done with a hypodermic needle and antiseptic eyedrops. Apparently, it was like trying to drain a pimple except the skin surface on the underneath of the eyelid is a lot more sensitive than the skin on the surface of our skin. So, the pain was unparalleled to anything I have ever felt before and tears were just involuntarily streaming down my face. The doctor, however credits me with an extremely high pain threshold because I didn't even move through the whole thing. Of course by that point, I was like "I'll tell you the nuclear weapon codes, just make it stop!" No need waterboarding or whatever else the CIA could think of to elicit false information.
It's over now but the pain required some Nurofen as well as an antihistamine to knock me out cold. Now, I'm just going to be either mistaken for thinking pink eyeliner is in for the next week or Packrat's going to get hauled up on 'suspected wife-beater' charges.
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Technorati Tags: blocked tear duct, home remedies
Ondine tossed this thought in at 08:25
1 thoughts...
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At 8:25 am
seriously! said... ai yer!!!:p