Does anyone out there suffere from ocular rosacea in addition to Lyme? Rosacea is a vascular disease on the face, and can hit the eyes. Ocular rosacea symptoms are swelling on eyelids and the entire area around the eyes, and the eyes themselves feel red, itchy teary. Its just a lovely sight and feels lousy. When these symptoms happen, it's treated with doxy abx. (only the tetracycline family of abx works for this) Is anyone going through this? I'm being treated for Lyme with IM injections and ketek, My ocular rosacea just flared, and I cannot take any doxy for it. I also cannot take another abx because my digestive system is really bad. My LLMD has said a doxy abx will diminish the abx potency that I'm on for for Lyme. He's switching my oral abx anyway soon, but I'll still be on bicillin injections which can't be taken with any tetracyclin abx. In the meantime, my eyes are really bad. I'm seeing an opthomologist tomorrow, but I don't think there is much that can be done without doxy abx. Has anyone else suffered with this too?
Lymehead
Posted by DeniseS (Member # 7276) on :
My red itchy puffy eyes were never diagnosed as rosacea but they sound like what you describe. Some thought it was an allergic rxn to a supplement or abx. It turned out that they were a yeast die-off reaction. I figured that out after one dose of diflucan many months later created the same rxn. And I thought I was getting away with avoiding the yeast monster. Oh no! Now I'm taking diflucan once a week and I'm on a very low carb diet with lots of probiotics including FloraStor (friendly yeast that crowds out the candida.)
BTW when the itching gets intolerable a dilute white vinegar and water solution swabbed around (not in) my eyes helps ease the itching. I also was rx'd some eye drops (Patanol) that helped a bit.
Good luck!
Posted by Sue vG (Member # 3143) on :
Rosacea has been shown to be influenced by the body's internal acid/alkaline balance.
By shifting the diet to eat more alkalizing foods and taking alkalizing supplements like Mg (timed around your abx, of course), I am able to keep mine pretty well under control. If I were more strict, I'd do an even better job of it.
EFA's also help, as well as learning what your body's trigger foods are (such as spices, alcohol, chocolate, etc.) and avoiding them.
Edited to add, I'm speaking about rosacea in general, not specifically ocular. Good luck!