Ocular Pain

It is another beautiful day today and I do hope you are having a great weekend wherever you may be. Our discussions have been going quite well and I am happy that it is paying off for some of my dear readers, hopefully, I can continue to help many others.

Today we would be taking a look at one of the most common symptoms people present to the eye clinic and the so many things they could signify. There are so many things that one symptom could represent and it is easy for us to be misled or get things wrong. We could take things for granted when we ought to be taken seriously and vice versa, the best thing is to seek professional counsel.

Pain is a sensation does can be very very discomforting, pain has led many people into acts or habits they otherwise wouldn't have done, pain can get one to do something they know they shouldn't do, and none of us would want to experience that kind of discomfort.

But pain is beneficial to the body in that it tells us when something is wrong somewhere in our body or system, this helps us to work our way around it by finding solutions to whatever the problem may be. Imagine if you couldn't tell if something was wrong and couldn't experience pain.

We would probably end up causing more damage to ourselves when things go wrong because we wouldn't even know something was wrong for us to do the needful about it. Pain is one of the 4 cardinal signs of inflammation, thus redness, swelling, heat, and pain. And so pain may tell us when inflammations are going on somewhere in our body so we could help resolve them whiles inflammation is a prerequisite for the beginning of the healing process, when left unchecked it could cause more harm than good.

Pain sensation when it comes to the eye may be interpreted wrongly by patients and thus become pertinent that health practitioners take time to differentiate between the various types of pain to ascertain what could be wrong with a patient.

A lot of times I meet patients who come in complaining of pain in or on the eye generally and further probing would later reveal that it wasn't pain in itself that they were feeling but some other forms of sensations such as burning sensation, prickly sensation, foreign body sensation, etc. It is important that as patients we also learn to explain our sensations well to our healthcare providers lest we be treated for something else.

Experiencing Pain in or in the eye could mean so many things and it is best to see your Optometrist for proper diagnosis and management. Under no circumstance or condition should you get over-the-counter drugs because you are experiencing pain in or in the eye? You shouldn't also use an old drug that was given to you the last time you went to the eye clinic with similar or the same symptoms because things could be different this time round.

The corneal which is the transparent part of the eye (the part you normally see black or dark when looking directly into someone's eyes) is one of the most sensitive organs in the entire body and anything going wrong with this organ can be extremely painful and difficult to bare. A typical example is when one develops a corneal ulcer, the person would likely be crying or tearing in addition to the eye reddening and the person experiencing lots of pain.

Should this person decide to get over-the-counter medication that has steroids in them their vision could be compromised permanently as the healing of the epithelium cells gets affected and scar tissues form within the cornea. But the test to ascertain whether this pain has any ulcer related to it would have to be done by your Optometrist with the aid of the slit-lamp equipment.

Pain in the eye may also signify inflammatory conditions such as uveitis or conjunctivitis and the like. Conditions like Uveitis can be sight-threatening if not dealt with and if the underlying cause happens to be infections such as toxoplasmosis it may leave scars on the retina which could have permanent damage and irreversible loss of vision. The good thing is that most of these conditions, when caught early, can easily be treated or managed without long-term negative effects on sight or your ocular health.

I guess the message I am trying to get across is that experiencing pain in the eye can mean a myriad of things some of which could be sight-threatening if not dealt with right, thus you should always seek professional care whenever you experience pain in the eye, do not try to manage it yourself, healthcare practitioners are there to serve your health need.

Remember that you only have your sight to experience the beauty and wonders of this world and that a lot of times vision loss may not be reversible. Be particular about your ocular health, love your eyes and love your sight, stay safe, and have a blessed week ahead.

Thank you for reading and for your time. Your comments are always welcome, do let me know if you have any ocular health issues bothering you that you would need clarification on. Let me add that the purpose of this write-up is never to scare you but to educate you so that we may all do what is right. Thanks once again for your time. All the best.