Don't Rub Your Eyes After Handling Zoanthids/Palythoa

yeah havent wore contacts in over 20 years. I just plain rub my eyes too much. At one time I was in gas permeable lenses and rubbed my eyes and it went to teh top of my eyeball. I then got lazy with them and didnt clean them properly so I got an infection. At that time I decided I wasnt responsible enough to wear contacts.

There is a possibility that I might need contact lens on that eye, depending on the scarring. The 3 possibilities for correcting the vision depending on the degree of scarring (there will be scarring for sure......already started) is 1. changes with special glasses lenses (thankfully I didnt get new glasses this year already like I was going to. 2. special contact lens for that eye only with special glasses lens, 3. corneal transplant. I am shooting for option 1!!!

What a difference a week makes however. This is day 10 of post-exposure.......now referred to the infamous B-day (blind day) Pain has improved quite a bit. Still having a lot of light sensitivity of both eyes. Headaches are more controlled and tolerable. Vision I feel has improved significantly. I feel like i have some peripheral vision on the left side (the ulcer is located on a clock from 12-5, so basically I can see somewhat between 6 and 11. The vision is now at 6/200 (was 1/200 on Monday) however I really think it is better than that. Last week I couldnt see the eye chart what-so-ever, today I could see a couple lines of the E just very blurry. The corneal inflammation has decreased significantly, the reddness of the eye is much better. Still have infiltrates he said but overall signs of improvement.

Extending my vacation a little longer. I dont have to see him again until Thursday afternoon so will see how it goes in r/t going back to work. I am very fortunate to work at an awesome office now where the management really does care about me.

One plus with this...........my doctors (1 resident in particular) has really done a ton of research on palytoxins. Like I said, hopefully they will publish an article that might help someone else who will get exposed down the line. The store I work for also has changed their policy on handling palys. Everyone must wear gloves to get into that tank........plus they are not accepting trades etc on big colonies of paly!

 

If you don't like wearing glasses and don't have a difficult problem. Try The One a day contacts. I really like them, I guess I've been using them for 3 years and I would never go back to normal contacts, you don't have to worry about solution and cleaning. All you need to do is throw them away when you are done and put in a fresh pair the next day. My eye doctor said if you have really bad vision though they may not work, i have -6.00

 

Wow. Was just about to cut some zoas up this week. I will be careful. Get well soon.

 

well it is day 12 b-day. No real changes, eye itself looks better. Much less red and no swelling. Dont see the doctor again until tomorrow but i dont think there is any change in the vision. Still painful and sensitive to light (EXTREMELY) Wearing the eye patch more and forcing my good eye to desensitize to the light. I definately know it is healing though as I can go several hours and do alright with the pain/sensitivity and then will have almost spams like pain and then be very sensitive to lights. Went out a little last night........went to dinner at a restaurant that had a bunch of LED signs and that was interesting. I dont do well with LED to begin with. Then was at Target with my eye patch on and it is weird how disorienatated you can become. Your depth perception is completely gone (reached for something and knocked it over) There was a child there that cracked me up. Even though I am self conscious about the patch, he was in line in front of us and kept staring at me. He then looks at his dad and points to me and says look daddy she is a pirate! Dad was horrified...........I just laughed!

 

I love your attitude during all of this

Good luck with the rest of your recovery!

 

you can see the progress of the eye. Reddness is all but gone. You can still see the ulcer pretty clearly however as you can see the cornea is much clearer and can see more brown IMO.

Anxious to go back to the doctor tomorrow and see how the vision is progressed. I was hoping to see more out of it than I am......right now just still blurry lights. Regardless of how I feel, I have to go back to work on Monday. Looking forward to that but in a way not looking forward to it. I have allowed myself to get very weak in this time and have no endurance. Plus I fear what 9 hours of computer is going to do to my eye pain. But when you have been employeed for a company only 8 months and dont have short term disabilty you have to do what you have to do. My concern is the long term treatment of the eye. If i need a corneal transplant, there is no way I will be able to take off that period of time and will not be able to have the procedure. I am hoping that as the ulcer heals and the scar tissue takes hold, i will be less sensitive to light. I can handle the vision loss if the sensitivty and pain goes away. However I feel that this is going to be a very very long process. My friend said she has this chronic eye condition that causes her to have frequent corneal abrasions (just on the surface of the cornea) and mine is an ulcer all the way back to the stroma of the cornea..........and she said she was in bad pain due to light for a month and had to wear her patch for over a month . She never had visual disturbances.

can you tell the steroids have kicked in????;D Also hoping that they start to taper the dose tomorrow! I think they are making me feel worse then I ahve to be........but hope is to prevent the scaring

 

nerves are definately regenerating tonight!!!! wow it is on fire right now! It is a good thing.....just got to keep reminding myself that! pain = nerve growth!!!

 

I'm no expert, but the improvement is quite clear (no pun intended). From the sidelines, all signs look positive considering the state things were in.

Still thinking of you; get well.

 

thanks again! Saw him again today. I was so excited they showed me the big eye chart with the big E and I was able to see it..........now mind you not clear and I saw 3 of them but I saw the big E. So I improved to 6/200 to 20/200!!!!

Had a rough night last night as I had some really bad pain. It felt like someone was holding a match to my eyeball on the inside by the tear duct. Even the skin around the eye was on fire. Kept me up almost all night. Very light sensitive. I was relieved to hear him say that the eye is continuing to improve and the pain is more nerves regenerating and healing (which makes sense the fire sensation!)

I am not released to return to work until at least Tuesday so a few more days to improve. I did wind up wiht some awesome looking sunglasses to accent my eye patch today compliments from teh doctor! I now have the old lady cataract glasses to wear! I am styling 8)

 

Congrats on the blue blockers!