Okay so holiday season is in full swing and I my sleep schedule is totally out of whack. I know it is impossible to get caught up on your sleep, you either get it when you need it or you lose it and as someone with narcolepsy, believe you me I have gotten my fair share of sleep. Just not in the past week or so. I went into work on Sunday and everyone kept asking me if I was okay, said it looked like I had been crying, either that or I was really tired. I didn't think anything of it, just assumed I was really tired. Today I wake up and the skin around my right eye is all red, again I think nothing- assume I slept on it or something like that. By the time I get to work I can see that it redness is not going away and I look like a freak of nature. The eye starts to itch- I try my best not to rub it (rubbing your eyes when you wear contacts is never a good thing anyway) because I don't know what is going on- there is no puss or leakage of any kind. One of my coworkers also works in a day care and says to me "I think you have pink eye" I was kind of thinking that myself but kept telling myself no since there was no leakage/crust/funk or gunk. When I got home I decided to go on WebMD to see what they say about pink eye..... personally I think sites like WebMD are a bad idea, how many times have you researched something on a site like that and convinced yourself you were going to die or had some rare untreatable disease? I do it all the time!!
So this is what I found out about pink eye so I knew and some I had no clue about:
- The eye is pink and itchy.
- Sometimes there is a feeling as if something is in the eye.
Other symptoms include:
- Eyelids stuck shut when you wake up in the morning (the classic symptom)
- Uncomfortable, thick yellow or green discharge (often a bacterial infection)
- Thin, clear drainage from the eye (often a viral infection or an allergic reaction)
- Itching, burning, or feels like sand in your eye (often a viral infection or an allergic reaction)
- Family member with the same symptoms (an infection is being passed from one person to another)
- Painful eye in bright light (called photophobia)
- A recent cold (often a viral infection)
- Swollen lymph nodes (often a viral infection)
- Burning during urination or discharge from the penis in men (rare) (kind of interesting, all week I felt like I had a urinary tract infection, could it have been pink eye starting to rear its ugly head?)
- Vaginal discharge in women (a possible complication of a sexually transmitted disease)
Of course when you try not to pay attention to how much your eye itches you start to feel itchy and "creepy crawly" everywhere else. I have been trying so hard to ignore it today and for the most part did okay. I am going to call a doctor first thing in the morning (left a note on the bathroom mirror asking D to make sure I am awake) hopefully the itch will be gone soon enough.
Off to try to fall asleep and think of something other than the itch
