I’m coming to the tail end of another eye flare.

I had to get out of bed this morning at about 7:30 because it starting going again.

I had vaguely been aware that I was feeling a bit clogged up and that maybe my eye was going to be a problem a little bit before that.

But it didn’t seem quite as bad as yesterday so I allowed myself to linger in bed.

But then at 7:30 I knew it was going to be a problem so I got out of bed. Once again, I have a really painful left eye.

The symptoms are that it simply will not stop watering and it feels very sore constantly.

It’s a combination of a kind of feeling as if something is in there, almost a bit like a bit of grit or an eyelash and at the same time as if something is eating away at it.

So it is a kind of sore and raw feeling.

Keeping it shut doesn’t seem to help at all. The excess watering, which is constant, does seem to help but only mildly.

Blinking all the time seems to help a little bit, to a degree.

It does seem to be a bit better if I try and avoid bright light, although it’s not a game changer I would say.

But in general not looking at screens helps and eventually after about 40 minutes I am able to look at my computer monitor fleetingly if I turn the brightness right down to minimum.

Having a shower and just generally getting up seems to be part of the process of feeling normal again.

It doesn’t cure it, but I think being outside of the room with all the dust mites (or whatever is causing this) helps.

Just generally moving my eyes around and keeping them open helps as well.

I decided to go for a walk at 9.50am.

The whole eye thing had made me feel really restless so it’s good to just get out of the house and to walk around because I was just pacing up and down in the house and going to the bathroom every minute to blow my nose.

The snot and the breathing is particularly bad and so I know that whatever is happening is in part triggered by an allergy.

The good news is I have the air purifier coming today!

I’m thinking about booking an optician’s appointment so that I can get it checked out because it’s always my left eye which is the problem and it’s only occurred since I had that blunt trauma to it.

I’m out walking today onto the Wansted flats in the bit nearest our house and I’m just kind of going sideways and across.

The walk has been pleasant and my eyes are feeling a lot better already. It seems consistent that the healing process each morning takes a minimum of 1 hour now.

On the plus side, I am absolutely over the moon that my back feels amazing at the moment and to be honest I haven’t even been that brilliant with my diet.

I have been doing the night time until lunch intermittent fasting and I know that has been a big game changer.

I’m not having any snacks or anything before lunch. So that is a big help for my ankylosing spondylitis I think.

I’m also mainly having broccoli and meat for dinner now so that is probably helping a lot too.

But I’m pigging out on dark (sugar free) chocolate and keto pork scratchings and things that aren’t very healthy in between lunch and dinner and that’s something I want to stop.

The pork scratchings leave a kind of sick slightly bloated feeling in my stomach which isn’t as bad as it used to be but just doesn’t feel great. So maybe once I finish those I won’t rush to get more.

But otherwise my back feels absolutely amazing.

It is such a relief and I feel like I could even run.

Lunch was salad and mushrooms and some slices of meat and that was fine but after that I ended up having a load more pork scratchings and raisins and pickled gherkins. Then at about 6pm I also had some truffle sausage and cheese.

For some reason I’m not doing the fasting between lunch and dinner at the moment. I think because I just feel inexplicably hungry and stressed maybe.

I got to the opticians appointment at 5pm. He was a really nice guy and he explained everything as he was going through it. I like it when they do that.

The good news is he couldn’t find anything and whatever damage I had done from accidentally poking my eye with the stick had completely healed up, which is a big relief.

What he did find is that I have quite bad blepharitis which is basically inflammation of the eyes or the eyelids.

He said that I think I need more of a certain oily layer which most people have and which is secreted by the eyelids or some ducks around there.

I’m getting incredibly dry eyes and then these little bits of gunk or flakes are going into my eyes and irritating them and then that’s causing inflammation and problems.

That’s why I’m getting a watery eye and the feeling like there’s something inside of it.

He recommended some kind of product which apparently helps solves this and I’ve written down the details of it. But basically you have to cleanse, hydrate and heat.

The cleansing bit is just taking some special wipes and wiping around the eyelids to clean them and hydrating bit is putting these drops in your eye which stop it from being too dry.

The heat bit is just a heated eye mask which you put over your eye a couple of times a day for 10 minutes at a time which apparently helps.

Hopefully I wake up tomorrow feeling ok with my eye.