Corneal Ulcer. my 13 yr old son went to bed with pain in the eye saturday night.

[seabeyond]

since he has gotten contacts, he has had one issue after another with his eyes. mainly left eye. eye issues are beyond me because i have always had good sight until older and know absolutely nothing about eye issues. so for the last year, i have dealt with really red eyes on my son, deciding when to see the doctor, or not. he is also a drama queen which makes it that much harder. but, this is what happened and i share cause we were really lucky. we made choices that were right, totally by accident.

saturday night going to bed late, he was complaining of pain. i put a soother in it. middle of night he is up still complaining of huge pain. more soother eye drops. (we have all kinds of drops from previous issues). he woke in the morning, and i decided maybe it really is pink eye with pain and light sensitive so i start using that. after second drop and looking closely at eye, i see a little white spot on iris. to the internet we go. doctors hate that. hubby diagnosed corneal ulcer, lol, but dont tell the doctor.

sunday morning. why always on the weekend. sunday morning hubby and i decide to see if we can get a hold of our optomitrist. i am a person that hates putting people out so this decision was hard. he called back and we happened to have the medicine he wanted for the eye, so on the hour i put that drop in. set oven timer to ring every hour instead of trying to remember.

monday morning 8 sharp, he goes into eye doctor (issue between the eye doctor and hubby, work related. and not our normal eye dr, but the best, so it was hard imposing on him as he was adjusting schedule to see son). a corneal ulcer on the eye. very bad. worried about losing sight. doctor was so glad that we decided to call sunday.

i think about this, because this is something hard for me to do, but was so good we did.

the doctor had him continue the one drop on the hour and another drop ten minutes after. and THRU THE NGHT. really. thru the night. lol. and still, we did it. set alarm clock and man, was hard to get out of bed by 4 a.m.

again, the doctor was so thankful we did that, surprised we went thru night. he expected a couple wake ups in the night.

but it paid off.

we are now to every two hours, and a gel at night before bed.

this morning, his eye almost looks normal.

just one more day of going with condition, waiting for monday work day could have made all the difference. we talk a lot about the obsessive parent or helicopter parent creating an environment where parents so dont want to be that, they might think twice about calling doctor on a sunday. never having had eye issues, i dont have the understanding how serious some of these issues may be. i feel that we were lucky with this one. because it is outside of my realm of comfort, i wanted to share with others, in case it was the same case for them. in case they ever ran into a like situation.

[hamsterjill]

1. Good for you!

It's important to be an advocate for our children, and you did a great job of that here. I know how you feel about "bothering people". I feel the same way, but there are times when we simply must seek help regardless of whether it's the weekend, etc.

[pnwmom]

2. Thank goodness you trusted your parental instincts,

even though I know it goes against the grain to "bother" a doctor at night or on the weekend. My pediatrician always said to trust those instincts -- I'm so glad you did.

[livetohike]

3. I'm glad to hear your son is on the mend. Never mess with eye

issues when one is a contact lens wearer. Thanks for sharing this story.

[seabeyond]

5. this contact thing is driving me nuts. my oldest son and husband have had NO issues with contacts

this youngest has had one after the other. i wonder if some just should not wear contacts. but he likes them so much, and it frees him up in play, sports. also... he is at the age, cosmetically they boost his confidence. we have tried so many different ones. husband said last night we might ought to go to daily contacts. more expensive. when son goes back to doctor tomorrow morning we are going to talk to him. the optometrist he has been using has not come up with an answer.

[livetohike]

11. I've worn gas permeable hard contact lenses since 1977

(but I was in my 20's then). If he is currently wearing hard lenses, maybe a switch to soft lenses would help . You have to be very clean in caring for contacts - wash your hands before inserting the lenses for the day and also before you remove them for the night. Keep the contact lens case rinsed of solution (and use the cleaning solution to wash it) and left open to dry during the day. Encourage him to take his time in cleaning the lenses each night. I think it's one of those things where you have to keep after a kid to make sure they are doing it correctly and not taking shortcuts .

I hope the optometrist comes up with some good ideas to solve this problem. I wish I had contacts when I was a teenager, but I'm not sure I would have been consistent in caring for them properly...

[CC]

17. He might be allergic to something

in the contacts. Very hard to diagnose as it presents with different problems. I cannot wear contact lenses for that very reason. Eye doc. after eye doc. thought if they just tried a different kind/brand/solution until finally one said there is something in them that your body does not like. Time to give up. It would have been cheaper and lots easier on me had they figured it out sooner and explained that I was just not going to be able to wear them.

Good luck to your son. (And you.)

[seabeyond]

20. interesting.

that is what it is feeling like. thanks for your story.

[Chan790]

19. I'm in the same boat as your youngest.

Or...rather I was at 13 and again at 22. I can't wear them, they do awful things to my eyes and every eye doctor I've ever seen has suggested them.

[seabeyond]

21. you are the second one to say this.

maybe if he wears them only when need for like sports, or social event and then come home and take out. we will experiment little more. but he does not seem like he can have them in like other son. hubby takes them out when he comes home from work. he does not leave in all day.

[Chan790]

25. In my case...

it's unfortunately cleanliness. I have grubby hands and subconsciously touch my face constantly. I'm not the most fastidiously-clean person to begin with and have issues with staying on routines. So wearing contacts was like an invitation to give myself conjunctivitis and eye-infections over and over.

On top of that, they just seemed to disagree with me. Last time I had them in, the OD put them in himself and I was still red-eyed in a matter of minutes. The longest I've ever been able to keep them in is about 6 hours.

[Jim__]

4. Glad to hear your son is doing better.

Good decision to call the doctor on Sunday.

[mopinko]

6. my sympathies to your son. i have had a couple of

corneal abrasions, and they hurt like the devil. i had a really big one go undiagnosed and improperly treated, (at northwestern memorial, go figure.) for a week. wanted to cut the eye out with a dull knife before i finally got it treated right. although a few days with both eyes patched was a drag, it did the trick.
trust me, it sucks.

[seabeyond]

8. the three of us were feeling pretty pissy to the son keeping us up at night. lol

first we didn't go to bed until after 12. then he is up "whining", lol. then had us all up at 6 a.m. complaining of pain.

sigh

we all felt a bit guilty when we realized the pain was excruciating. bad us.

[mopinko]

10. it's always a sticky wicket.

i had a drama queen first class who always had some sort of complaint, always dragging me to some doc or another, always found nothing. then felt completely neglected that the next time around my eyes rolled all the way back in my head. lol.
i knew raising kids required a sense of humor. who knew so much of it would be laughing at myself.

[RobinA]

12. I'm With You

Left my hard contacts in for 36 hours once in college due to driving all night to beat a snowstorm back to school. Started out feeling like I had something in my lens, ended up feeling like that something was a knife, with tears out of that eye running constantly down my cheek. Slogged through two feet of snow to the college infirmary (you KNOW I felt bad)only to be told I had a corneal abrasion from leaving the lenses in too long. Put some yellow goop in my eye and told me to put it in twice a day. I was going, " Yeah, right, yellow goop for this horrible pain." Lo and behold it worked like a charm upon first application. Cleared it right up, but the pain was excruciating before the goop.

[Marrah_G]

7. Scary!!!!!!

I'm really glad he is going to be okay.

[Lucinda]

9. I have dealt with horrible health issues for so long that I have a bad habit

of toughing things out (just for myself - I always nudge others to go to the doc)

Your post is very good advice.

I'm so happy to hear that there is improvement in his eye.

[RobinA]

13. My Parents

were a doctor and a nurse. If a limb wasn't hanging off there was nothing wrong us. I went two years without glasses after I developed myopia because they didn't believe I couldn't see. I used to stand in front of the TV in order to see it. They thought I was a drama queen. Thank god for school eye testing.

[seabeyond]

14. you would think it would be the opposite. when my oldest was 6 i took him in for an exam

the former (note former) eye doctor told me both kids doing good. all that school year kid complained he couldnt see. i didnt believe it cause after all we had just seen the doctor. after a year, and seeing him get up on the tv, squint to look at distance i took him to a different doctor. his eyes were bad. they are now -6.00 and -5.00. the doctor gave me a lens the last time that lets me see what he sees without corretion. wow. near blind. the changes move quickly when they are little then start settling down when older. but all this stuff was new to me, so i didnt get it perfect.

[sakabatou]

15. I'm glad your son is recovering

My eyesight is partially shot in my right eye (brain damage).

[MrCoffee]

16. Oh, I get those some times, they are horrible

What brand contact does he wear? Consider switching brands.

[boston bean]

18. Your son may be allergic to some substance in the lens solution.

[seabeyond]

22. i was talking to our regular optometrist yesterday. had my oldest for regular check up

she had a preference with solution. she says yes/no the solution matters but didnt explain. we get generic. maybe i will get son the better solution and see if that helps.

[boston bean]

23. what type of lenses doe he wear, daily, extended?

[seabeyond]

26. i think, baush & lomb PureVision. extended. 30 days. no sleeping in them.

both boys are out and i have ordered for oldest son. but holding off getting youngest some. our not regular but good doctor said the contacts may be too tight on him. we are going to see if he has any suggestions.

the older container i found in sons cabinet was frequency 55 aspheric.

it seems like our optometrist is always changing to a newer, improved.

[boston bean]

30. it's a little more expensive but maybe he should try the daily disposable.

I have those for my son and just find it easier for him.

He takes them out at night, throws them away, and puts in a new pair in the morning.

No solutions needed.

[seabeyond]

31. we were going to look at the daily

thanks for the info on that.

[MrCoffee]

32. B&L PureVision lenses DESTROYED my eyes...throw them away ASAP

Those are horrible, horrible lenses. I wore Acuvue for 12 years, slept in them, never changed them, took terrible care of them, and never had a single problem. An eye doc switched me to B&L PureVision, and I started getting corneal ulcers less than 6 months later.

I'm back to Acuvue, but now I still occasionally get an ulcer. I'm convinced it's because of those worthless B&L lenses.

[seabeyond]

34. thank you. really....

the thing, when son first started, he had no problem. then optometrist kept changing. must have had four or more different ones. son and i keep saying we want the first one.

wont let other son have the b&l either.

appreciate.

[Dappleganger]

38. My husband used to work for Vistakon on several Acuvue lines...

when I began wearing contacts he insisted that I get daily lenses as he said they had more issues with 2-week and 30-day than any other kind. The problem is with cleaning, most people don't have proper cleaning education. It could be solution, method or both.

He's not there any longer so now I can say he worked there, lol.

[boston bean]

24. Also, check to make sure thimerasol is not one of the substances in his solution.

I thought they didn't make it with that anymore, but I could be wrong.

It causes redness, and irritation in about 10% of the contact lens wearing population.

[seabeyond]

28. thanks for the heads up. will check in the future. this solution specifically says

it contains NO thirmersol or ??? another chemical.

[Dappleganger]

39. The manufacturer needs to be notified of the problem...

it could be a bad batch issue as well. It could be a LOT of things, but if you have the box w/the batch numbers on it and contact B&L, they really will want to know. It could be a pattern or be the only one, but if it's a pattern it could trigger a recall. You can also complain to the FDA (which is actually performing a little better under the present administration).

[seabeyond]

40. i went looking for the stuff today. i must have cleaned the room

cause the boys never throw stuff away.

[Liberal_in_LA]

27. glad you caught it in time!

[derby378]

29. I am so sorry to hear about this

I truly hope your son is doing better. Hang in there.

[davsand]

33. Any corneal injury is painful. I gave up hard lenses, in part, because of it.

I wear soft lenses now, but I'd been wearing rigid gas perms for years and suddenly started having issues with corneal abrasions. No drama about it, those suckers hurt! A corneal ulcer (from the way it was explained to me, anyway) is a long term abrasion. I dunno what your eye doc says, but mine told me to lay off contacts for a couple of weeks to even a month after having an abrasion. I have to wonder if your son is maybe re-injuring that eye because he's putting contact lenses back in too soon.

I also echo the suggestions to check into a different brand of lens or maybe even different contact lens solutions. When I was using a different solution I had more problems with my lenses, and my eye doc suggested I try BioTrue (a newer solution.) I have had a lot fewer problems and my lenses feel more comfortable. I'd suggest asking his eye doc about it (or any other solution) when he goes back for a follow up visit.

Good luck to you guys!


Laura

[seabeyond]

35. thank you.

really, all this personal info is good stuff. i am truly clueless and out of my depth with all this, never having experienced. i was in this morning. doctor says he is out of crisis mode. on to healing. and NO contacts for a while. made clear to son, he will go a while without to heal. then we will look at if he uses again, change back to his first lens where he had no problem, go to daily.

i am so bad, i dont know what hard or soft mean. hard.... extended? soft.... daily?

anyway. i appreciate the info.

i am looking ot get him his own solution, too and not generic.

[davsand]

36. I have been wearing contacts since 1976.

Yes, I really am an old fart.

Anyhow, how about a quick explanation of some of the terms thrown out here...

Hard (also called rigid) lenses are just that--they are hard little cupped bits of plastic that generally fit over the pupil (the black part of the eye.) They slide up and down just a bit when you blink and that pumps tears under the lens to keep the eye moist. They take a lot of determination to get used to, but they do a bang up job of correcting nearsighted vision. An added plus is they sometimes act kinda like a retainer, in that, they can slow down the worsening of nearsightedness. A newer version of hard lenses is called rigid gas permeable (gas perms for short) and they are made of a plastic that allows more Oxygen to get to the surface of the eye. They are more comfortable, and most eye docs that prescribe a rigid lens will probably go with them. The biggest plus for any rigid lens is they are pretty easy to take care of, and, as I said before, they do the best job of correcting bad vision.

Soft lenses are just that--soft little disks of plastic. They are floppy little things, but they are really easy to get used to, it takes a pretty short time to get to a point you can wear them all day. Soft lenses have to be sterilized with a solution every day. Because they hold fluids (which is why they are so comfortable) soft lens wearers can have infections in the eye unless they are careful to wash hands and keep lenses clean. Soft lenses are most often sold these days as "monthly" product, in that, you wear them for 30 days, then throw them out and open up a new pair. Soft lenses are not designed to wear when you sleep--you need to take them out a night. A newer version of soft lenses, (Extended Wear) is out there that allows you to sleep in them, you pretty much take them out to clean them and that is about it. An even newer version of soft lenses exists, and with those, you just get a new pair EVERY day. Those are the Daily Wear lenses people are talking about.

Dunno if that helps you with the lingo or not, but feel free to shoot me a PM if you feel like you want to ask more questions. This is your kid we are talking about and you are gonna feel a lot more comfortable if you have a handle on what everybody is talking about.


Peace to you.



Laura

[Dappleganger]

37. OMG, what a scary ordeal!

It's a good thing you paid attention to those parental instincts, it saved your son's eye from the worst outcome. You are really lucky, but at the same time you paid attention and didn't just let it slide. When it comes to our kids we just can't take any chances, you know?

Haven't had an eye incident, but we had kids w/bad asthma and have met the ped at the hospital on more than one occasion during the weekend. It always turned out to be perfect timing, things can go downhill so quickly with no turning back when you pass a certain point. Our ped always commended us on our parental instinct (which was also based on years of experience in dealing w/their breathing issues). Always trust yourself.

[Odin2005]

41. OWWWWW!!! Hope it gets better real fast!