Red eye, painful, light sensitive but no dischgarge

Hello
I am a contact lens wearer (female age 22) I normally wear my contacts 15 hours a day but have never had problems before.
I woke up this morning with a very red eye, and it looked like pink eye, however there is no discharge, in fact it's a bit dry.  It is also painful.  Not like there is something in my eye, but almost like an aching, like a headache in my eye.  Behind my eye perhaps.  the redness is in my right eye, and the right side of my right eye (the white part) is VERY tender to the touch.. when I  close my eyes and touch the outside.  It also hurts whenever I look at light...or look around for that matter.  i've had to wear sunglasses all day!
Please help.  Is this something I need to go in for? Will the Doctor even do anything? I don't have good eye insurance but I do have good health insurace.  I saw my school nurse and she said it wasn't pink eye, but wasn't sure what it was.  
Thanks!

[johnsn04]

OH AND I don't really have blurry vision or anything, but it seems like the dialating of my eye is off a bit.  Slow to respond but not stuck in one position.  

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

1. Stop wearing your contacts.
2. Everyone wearing contacts should be under the care of an ophthalmologist or optometrist. Call yours and ask to be seeing today. you couldhave a corneal ulcer which is very serious.
3. If you have made the serious mistake of not being under the care of an optom or ophthalmologist start calling Eye MDs in your office to get exam today. Find one at www.aao.org
4. All else fails go to ER

JCH MD

[johnsn04]

Thanks for the reply.  I went to the eye doc today and turns out I had iritis.  Now I need to go get a bunch of blood work done to see what underlying auto-immune disease I have.  Lucky me.  

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

You can use the search feature and archives to read about iritis (also called anterior uveitis)

JCH MD