Should I seek another opinion regarding issues in my left eye?

[jper11]

I have been having trouble with my left eye only. About 5-6 weeks ago, I went in with redness in the white part of my eye along with pain and light sensitivity. The doctor prescribed prednisolone eye drops with a tapering dose over a week or so. This seemed to take care of the issue.

However, a couple of weeks later and after going off of the eye drops as prescribed, my eye flared up with the same symptoms. The doctor recommended the same treatment. The eye once again improved.

1 week after the second incident, I was nearly tapered entirely off of the eye drops. However, my top eyelid became quite swollen and painful. The doctor over the phone recommended going back up to a higher dosage of the prednisolone. This seemed to take care of the issue.

Another week later, I was back down to a drop a day, but I started noticing eye ache. Last night, I had a small dark red spot in the white of my eye (~3mm in diameter). This progressed into a red streak radiating outward in my eye like a spoke. I believe it to be a broken blood vessel. I called the doctor and he said to watch it but that I shouldn't come in unless there are more issues.

It is possible that the last couple of issues were coincidental and unrelated to the original issue (e.g. a stye and a broken blood vessel). However, due to the fact that this has all happened within the last couple of months in the same eye, I am concerned that there is an underlying issue to all of this. It seems like whenever I go below about 2 drops a day of prednisolone, more problems occur. Should I seek a second opinion? Is there anything that I should be watching out for?

[JohnHaganMD]

If you are seeing an OD, optometrist, non-MD absolutely seek a second opinion with a MD ophthalmologist. If you are seeing an Eye MD you need to have a frank discussion.  The problem with the recurring redness on the surface of the eye is most often, (but not always) recurrent episcleritis or scleritis.  Patients that have this problem sometimes have underlying systemic diseases such as auto-immune or rheumatoid disease. A systemic work up is often needed. The subspecialist that does this usually specialize in cornea/external disease. You need a frank discussion with your Eye MD (if you are indeed seeing one) about a referral to same.