Eye Update - December

This picture doesn't show it looking too bad, because it is lunch time, but my eye is still pretty much the same its been - not worse or better. The muscle is still swollen behind the eye, pushing the eyeball out a bit, and the eyelid is still retracted making it look worse, and I can’t control it. But there are good days and bad days. And for sure the best time of the day is 10am til about 3 or 4pm. It's real blurry when I am tired. In the morning its pretty swollen until I shower and wash my face. But it’s hard to put on makeup because my vision is so blurry - I have stopped with the eyeliner because I can’t see a straight-line and I only put mascara on the top lashes because I can barely see the bottom ones so always bump it on my face, haha! So I've give up on trying to look pretty...which helps me get ready faster in the mornings!

Thankfully the pain is pretty much gone, as I sit here, I mean it still hurts a bit when I touch it, which is really only when I am washing my face. And it hurts when I force the eyeball to look up or out to my right side, because that’s when I get the doubled vision. I always have to remember to look with my head, not with my eyes. It’s tough though, because now my neck always hurts from tilting it back so often to see out my eyes looking down. I told Kevin he may need to take the TV down from above the fireplace and place it on the floor for me until this all goes away! Funny, right? But seriously, it is so frustrating that I cant even watch TV at night!! Plus it has been hard being social because I can't focus to give people eye contact during a conversation because it’s so uncomfortably blurry, and I just feel like everyone’s just staring at my bulging eye, and I am sick of explaining my eye disease story over and over! So if you see me staring at the table or floor when I talk with you....I am sorry, I am not trying to be rude, I promise.

My glasses are definitely helping at night when I drive, and sort of when I try to watch TV. The glasses just make help make the blurriness less fuzzy. I feel like they allow me to use my eyeball more so I don’t always tilt my head back and hurt my neck. I have to keep forcing myself to use the eye muscles even if it hurts…that blog I am reading says to do eye muscle exercises. And I have bought some flaxseed oil. We’ll see if that truly helps anything. Like I said, I am trying anything and everything. I cant imagine 4 more months of this...all my showers, maternity photos, Florida, delivery, etc. If the antibodies truly wont subside until after pregnancy, it better go away fast after she comes out!

I didn't end up getting steroid eye drops, because it was actually oral steroid pills, high dose for 10 days, he wanted to prescribe me. But he said that even that for sure wont help because we don't know if the steroids will go to work directly on the eye muscle, and with baby, its just not worth the risk. So he gave me "Advil" eye drops to help with the pain, which I have been taking, and they do work, but they don't fix the blurriness. I am also trying to keep up with lubricant eye drops so my eyes aren't so dry with the lid being pulled back all day long. We keep researching to learn all we can…but I am learning the reality is its going to be a long 4 more months. In the meantime, I am trying to distract myself with working on the baby’s room! We are painting the closet and hanging the clothes organizer this week, hooray!!!