I have a problem with my eyes, hence the title of this blog.
Being chronically ill is like slowly being robbed of the things you love. It happens so gradually that you only realise what's going on when you look to the past. I had a normal life involving lots of work, lots of socialising, lots of exercise and most importantly, the freedom to be myself. By that, I mean the freedom to express my personality through hair and make up. You can have a quick look at some of my hair and make up of old in this post here. Beware, there's years of evidence of over-plucked brows in there, haha.
After I became allergic to hair dye all the funky coloured hair styles of the past stopped. I had wondered if a day would come where I would become allergic to make up but hoped that would never be the case. In my youth a quick swipe of eyeliner or eyeshadow and some mascara was enough for me. Now I'm fast outgrowing a dressing table stuffed to bursting with make up and skincare products, and now I can't wear any eye make up for longer than 10 minutes before I have to wash it off because I can't see.
My eyes are SO dry. It's a condition which seems to be common to Fibromyalgia (you can read about dry eyes here) and also a couple of my meds make it worse. When my eyes start to burn (which is every day) they start to water. Because my eyes are so dry, there's too much salt in my tears and not enough lubricant. No matter how much my eyes water (and they water constantly when they're irritated) it doesn't help. It gets so bad I can't even open my eyes at times. Cig smoke sets it off, my neighbours underneath (who seem to cook onions all day every day) set it off, cold air sets it off, steam from cooking sets it off... and it is effing miserable.
While I was at my aunt's this weekend my eyes were streaming by the evening as usual so she gave me an Optrex eye wash to use. AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! The relief was almost instantaneous. It was cooling and refreshing and it stopped the watering within about a minute. I just bought a few eye products from an online chemist to ease the symptoms. At least until I get to see my GP I know there will be some temporary relief. I'm not sure what's going to happen on the make up front. I hope I can be prescribed some artificial tears which will prevent the watering. If that doesn't change the irritation caused by eye make up I'll have to look out for hypoallergenic makeup or experiment to see which products don't irritate my eyes. I hope to find products that are kind to my eyes and kind to animals too....but feel that might be too big an ask.
And if the unthinkable happens and I can't wear eye make up any more? I'll have my eyeliner tattooed on and will wear the brightest lipsticks imaginable to draw attention from my eyes. I will not let this illness take away another one of my joys.
Have you had to give up something you were passionate about? If so, what was it and how did you deal with it?
Thanks for reading.
Now the mister is out from under my feet I have quite a lot of catching up to do with blog posts.
