UK Keratoconus Self-Help and Support Association

Two and a half months post graft and I reallly need to rub my eye (but don't!). It is more uncomfortable now than it was in the first few weeks. I had it checked in A+E last week and was reassured nothing to worry about. The vision is also slightly worse than what it was. I am imagining my stitches pulling and causing distortion, discomfort and NEED TO RUB amd am hoping it's all part of the healing process.Has anyone had similar experiences?

Yes! In a nutshell! I do get the urge to rub my eye but since my graft I have ensured that I have never touch the eye!.....God knows how I have done this but I think its in my subconcious mind now!.....as the potential effects of heavy rubbing on a transplanted cornea could be severe at such an early stage

Dont do it!!!!!

I had the same feeling but the discomfort was really bad 8 weeks post op. I never have rubbed the grafted eye yet and do not intend to. Very perculiar as I constantly rubbed both eyes before the graft but now only rub my ungrafted eye.

On occasions I could feel the stitches in my eye, went to eye casulty many times and was told that was nothing to wory about. I eventually figured out that the discomfort only happens when I have had lack of sleep for two dasy or so and feels a lot better when I get at least 8 hours sleep. A drop or two of preservative free liquafilm helps a lot!

Much the same here, massive urge just to ape-knuckle my eye silly sometimes ... I don't thou. I'm even still very aware about hardly touching that eye yet. But like most wounds with stitches, there is that dry itchy-tightness tugging feeling too, which only aggravates it I think. The thing I find really helps is a cotton pad soaked in sterile water and allowed to soak-form over my eye, oh now that helps ease it!
The best thing about these little square pads is that they're double ply; hold a fair amount of water and wet-stick to the eye area so you don't need to lay down - it stays nice and cool for about 30-40mins ... bliss ...

Asif

DITTO...If i dont get much sleep for 2 or more days it feels like something has changed in the cornea and I can feel the sutures when I blink........

J

I suupose it is possible to top of the sutures are 'tickling' the eye making you want to rub them.

Investigate some comfort drops to try and reduce the senation and perhaps the urge to rub will go away.

I too can associate with what everyone has said.

When I get the urge I tend to careress/rub lightly the area of the eye socket. (thats just on the boney part).

I didn't rub, honest!. But something must have been going on last night. Massive burst blood vessel today, you know when the sclera is all red! Didn't happen till on the way to work. Luckily I work at City Hospital, Birmingham where I had my graft done, so hot footed it to Eye Casualty. I was reassured that my graft looks lovely and this was an unrelated problem, nothing to worry about.
Proceeded to have a really stressful day at work, no sympathy there as usual. Never mind will try to switch off from work and onto sorting out family problems this weekend.
Don't know how my blood pressure was so low when measured in casualty this morning, with my stress levels it should be through the roof!

Val,

When my blood vessel broke in my eye earlier this month it was just after I had had my blood presure taken while the nursed did a pre-op. They said my blood pressure was low and just before going into surgery, when I took my lenses out noticed a burst vessel.

Call eye casualty and they wanted me ASAP, but bewilderd when I told them I was in hospital in the next town. Had the op and got transferd to Coventry.

My grfat is quite old now and I was reasurred that all that my grafts have been through, a burst blood vessel was nothing by comparison!

Yes, I know that feeling! It is like the longest you have ever kept a lens in your eye and you can't wait to get it out so you can have a long long rub of your sore little eye.

I irrigate my eye with everything I can find. Artificial tears, sterile saline, you name it and I drop it in to try to soothe the itch. Once I woke up and found myself tugging at the shield to try to get my fingers in for a rub, but I stopped myself.

A very good reason for wearing an eye shield.

Now, I'm off to irrigate again. Just thinking about rubbing makes me want to do it. Is this like yawning?

Andrew