eye pain behind the left eye following eye herpes

[jonttu84]

I had an Optometrist diagnose me with eye herpes a week ago.  Before I visited the OD, I had pain in my eye and at night I would get nausea and a headache.  I did a follow-up appointment with the Optometrist and the dendtrite was gone, but my left eye is still red and there is still some pain in my left eye.  The pain/ nausea/headache seems to happen at night.  It almost seems like it is hard to move my eyes now.  These headaches seem to be similar to the ones I get if I get car sickness.  My eye prescription is fine, but my left eye (herpe eye) seems to still be a little blurring even though there was no corneal scarring.   I think almost a month has gone by since I had my first sign of eye herpes.  I searched the internet, but found no concrete answers (cluster headaches, brain aneurysm, etc)  Any suggestions?  

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

Yes do see another eye MD and while you are worrying about the red eye the most important thing to worry about is whether there is macular degeration or optic nerve degeneration.

Let us know.

JCH III MD

[jonttu84]

The Dr I had an appointment was on the list (Dr. Ho in Lubbock,TX, eye MD) .  He said I could have been born like this(optic nerve condition).  From what I remember, my dad has the same condition because I went to a glaucoma specialist in Austin and he said there were no problems (2.5 years ago).  One thing I failed to mention is that I have been wearing my glasses a lot lately because of the recent HSV infection.  They are not up to date on my prescription.  I can still see pretty well out of them though.  I think when I go home to Austin for the holidays I'll make an appointment with a different Dr.  I just don't think that one eye should be significantly redder than the other. My left eye lid seems a little puffy as well. Of course, Lubbock is a pretty dry environment and my eyes have always been a little irritated out here.  Maybe I have some hidden sinus problems.  I don't have any congestion though.

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

Well you certainly don't seem to have had much luck with your physician encounters.

Could it be that he said you had "macular degeneration"? That is much more common than optic nerve degeneration. The latter is super serious and requires a very extensive blood and MRI work-up.

Eye strain would not cause any of this.  Thankfully stress will not cause this or the whole world would have eye problems.

You cannot walk around with a diagnosis of "optic nerve degeneration" even if its macular degeneration you need a work up and put on a program to reduce it progressing.

I would say ask your personal physician for a referral to an Eye MD or if you live in a city with a medical school go to their department of ophthalmology or go to www.aao.org and pick a member of the Am Acad of Ophthal near you.

JCH III MD

[jonttu84]

I had an appointment with the ophthalmologist yesterday.  He said there were no problems.  I don't really understand what this problem could be.  My left eye is still red, and there is some pain that seems to be located behind my eyes or somewhere in the vicinity.  I have quite a few floaters in my left eye.  This pain is giving me headaches.  Any suggestions?  My vision still seems to be fine. The ophthalmologist said my pressure was fine in both my eyes, it almost seemed like he was ignoring me when I was telling him my symptoms (nonchalantly writing notes on his sheet), then at the very end of our appointment he said.... "I really wasn't going to tell you this, but you may has some optic nerve degeneration)  Should I get another opinion, or trust this doctor?  He didn't dilate my eyes which was weird.  I thought you needed to a good view of the eye?  What do I know about eyes though; I'm just an electrical engineer.  Could this just be some sort of eye strain?  I spend a lot of time near a computer because of school.  Could stress induce these symptoms?  Finals tend to stress me out some.

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

Yes, in my opinion an eye with herpes simplex needs to be seen by an ophthalmologist. There is a vast difference in training and experience between a MD eye physician and a limited scope, non-physician optometrist.

As a late complication of herpes simplex the virus can get in the middle of the cornea or it can get inside the eye and cause a uveitis.

Make an appointment with an ophthalmologist ASAP. Your family MD will generally be happy to arranage a consult or you can go to www.aao.org and find an Eye MD near you.

50% of h simplex experience reoccurences.

JCH III MD