Ocular Rosacea

In another one of my Hubs about a specific Omega 3 supplement, I touched on the subject of ocular rosacea, an eye condition that I was diagnosed with a few years ago. I thought it was an important enough subject to warrant its own Hub because others may be suffering from it and not realize it.

Perhaps you are familiar with acne rosacea, which is more common than rosacea of the eyelids. Acne rosacea is a skin condition, and technically ocular rosacea is also a skin condition, but it affects the skin condition of the eyelids. In my own case, I was diagnosed with the eye variety (ocular rosacea) but not the facial variety (acne rosacea), but many patients suffer from both.

People with ocular rosacea have very, very chronically dry eyes and they also tend to experience a lot of irritation in the eyelids, red, bloodshot eyes, crusty eyelids, etc. People with this condition seem to be more vulnerable than most to eye infections such as Pink Eye and Blepharitis.

It helps to have your tear ducts plugged permanently by your eye doctor. This is not a painful procedure. (I know because I have had it done.) This procedure enables you to keep more tears in your eyes because you may not be producing enough tears to keep the surface of your eyes moist and/or the quality of tears that you produce may not be very high.

Remember that only a trained, licensed eye doctor can diagnose patients with ocular rosacea. There are other causes of dry eye. However, if you are experiencing any of the symptoms described in this Hub article, you might want to schedule a visit with your eye doctor to get it checked out.

What Has Helped Me The Most in Combating My ocular rosacea:

- Having my eye doctor place permanent plugs in my eye ducts.

- Drinking a lot more water each day. (People with ocular rosacea tend to get more dehydrated than other people.)

- Supplementing my diet with Omega 3 supplements (in my case fish oil, but if you are vegetarian, flax seed oil works, too). For me, this last item has proven to be the most helpful. I noticed a dramatic difference after I started taking Omega 3 on a daily basis.

Of course I am only one person, and what worked for me may or may not work for other people. But a lot of people with dry skin conditions of various kinds have been helped by adding more fish oil (or flax seed oil) to their diets. (Think of supplementing with Omega 3 as moisturizing your body from the inside out.)