A New Word in my Vocabulary - Blepharitis

This week, because it’s taking over my life, I need to share with you my drippy eyes that I now know is called Blepharitis – How did this happen? Since March the skin around my eyes has been irritated, I put this down to something I was allergic to but failed to find the culprit. Also, my eyes started to randomly weep, this went on for a short time completely stopping when I when I visited The Galapagosoff the coast of Ecuador. Hmm, is this where I need to live for the rest of my life? Two weeks ago I was practically booking a one way ticket as it was back with little relief.

What I do for a living doesn’t allow for thiscondition, it’s not an option to put up with it,so I went to see my ophthalmic surgeon who had previously lasered my eyes. My watering eyes are multifactorial, it says on my notes,eyes are a little dry, this causes irritation which results in my eyes over producing tears, these tears don’t contain lubrication oil due to a gland dysfunction so don’t coat my eyes surface when I blink and to top it all, my tear ducts are small, like a sink with a plug hole that’s not big enough to drain the water.

You might also have been down this road,Blepharitis affects babies, children and yep largely women due to hormonal changes. My programme to fix is;

Warming my eyes daily with a microwave heat mask, wipe morning and evening the area around my eyes with lid wipes, use tear emulating eyedrops and have a little operation to enlarge my tear ducts. Diligence is paying off, the heat mask in-particular is worth its weight in gold, far less irritation and calming down, in preparation for the tiny op. If this is happening to you, good old Dr Google has so much information but sometimes too much and its confusing. My favourite and most accurate information with loads of giveaway advice came from oclvision.com/conditions/blepharitis.

Now on to nicer things like summer fragrances. The suggestions in this week’s magazine are spot on and definitely suited to sunnier situations I actually have one I call, ‘my holiday perfume’. Never worn at home but always in my case with a sarong is ClarinsEau Dynamisante.

Sadly though, I’m a walking mosquito take away, so spend most of my time wearing Eau de Repellent!  

One important tip though, refrain from spraying perfume on your neck in the sunshine. Most perfumes contain alcohol which is very drying couple that with the sunshine and not only does it promote wrinkles but can irritate and lead to pigmentation problems.

I’ll finish off with my low alcohol summer drinking tip.

Max 3 fingers of white wine in a tall glass, ice, and sparkling water.

You’ll still enjoy yourself, stay hydrated and you won’t miss the headache on the beach in the morning!