Burning eyes/front head and painful neck

[Syagrius]

Hi.

It has been 3 months now since I live with painful and tiring condition. 3 months ago, I played computer games a couple of nights with a bad posture, with poor lighting and too much near the cathodic screen. After that, I stopped completely this foolishness. However, I never felt my eye the same again. The upper part of them are constantly burning and numb. It is like having a pain in the back of my eyes, deeply in my head. Around my left eye, I feel a big numbness and a itching sensation. My neck was painful but doing physiotherapy with stretching helps my neck feeling better. I feel constantly very tired with this condition. In the left of my left eye I feel on a permanent basis like someone kicked me there.
I have seen two ophthalmologists but they didn't seem to know my condition and said my eyes were fine and I had just a light angular blepharitis. But my life is being ruined by my condition. This permanent uncomfort and tiredness drains me. Ophthalmologists dismisse the computer vision syndrome and say it could be a neck cervical dammage or a facial neuralgia. I have already passed a TDM which is normal. I have an appointment with a neurologist on august 2. But I ask you, could forcing a lot our eyes in front of a screen for a long periode of time finish by injurying nerves and muscles in the front of my head? Or/and could my bad posture kind of jammed my neck and therefore alter my blood flow or something like that?

Syagrius

[Joyce K Lee, MD]

Dear Syagrius,

Thank you for submitting your question.
I will answer your concerns to the best of my abilities, but please be informed that I am unable to offer a diagnosis based on your history and list of symptoms.
I am extremely limited in not having the opportunity to perform a full neurologic examination on you, nor am I able to review the pertinent imaging.
This is solely for educational purposes and should in no way be a substitute for a formal evaluation by a certified physician.

From your history, you seem to be experiencing deep eye pain and neck pain associated with L eye numbness and itching with onset occurring after a prolonged night of videogaming -- correct?

To begin, I am glad that you sought help initially from an ophthalmologist -- this is the sensible thing to do to rule out eye emergencies.
From what you said, it appears that the eye specialists felt that you had angular blepharitis.
I am not an eye specialist, but I do know that blepharitis is an inflammation of the eyelid usually associated with an infection (Staphylococcus or Moraxella.)  They are usually treated with an antibiotic ointment, but some may self-resolve.
Based on my reading of the eye literature, itching and numbness around the eye in this condition are common.  However, it is typically not painful.

This leads me to think that some of your problems may be due to the blepharitis, but not in entirety.

My two strongest suspicions are for the following:
1) Migraine Headaches
2) Neck pain (aka cervicalgia) with referred pain to the eye
I am more compelled toward chosing the latter as you do not have the typical migrainous features.

I do not feel that you have a cervical spine or spinal cord problem, but rather a neck muscle problem.
When people assume positions for a long period of time or have chronic bad posture they strain their neck muscles.
The picture of the website you posted is a beautiful example of this.
Most people think that the neck muscles begin and end in the neck, when in fact they wrap around to the back and top of the head.

The most common muscles in the neck that are culprits of "strain" are the SCM (sternoclinomastoid muscle) and the trapezius muscle.
Although they don't end in the eye region, they can cause referred (or migrating) eye pain.
People will also complain of muscle soreness in the shoulder areas and around the shoulder blades.

All in all, I am glad to hear that you are set up to see a neurologist.
If you do in fact have cervicalgia, there are multiple pain management options that can be discussed.

It is common practice to use a muscle relaxant like Flexeril (mainly at night due to the sedating effects) and an anti-inflammatory medication (like Ibuprofen.)
If this does not manage the pain, there are simple procedures that can be done including trigger point injections of narcotic medications like Lidocaine or Marcaine.
I also  highly recommend physical therapy for this, in addition to you being extra vigilant about maintaining a good posture and avoiding neck strain again.

Thank you,
I hope this helps,
Best regards,
JKL, MD

[Syagrius]

Hi,

Sometimes, my memory is not as good because I constantly feel being drained by this tension behind my eyes and on the left part of my head, down to my neck. I see a neurologist thursday. Maybe I would have more insight on my condition then. However, I already found something meaningful to me, a medical image which describe perfectly what my hell is. It is so accurate that it could really be the source of my problem. I would show it to the neurologist thursday.

http://www.round-earth.com/images/SCM-Pain.gif

So the source of everything could be in my neck.

Syagrius

[slowbrain]

Do you have dizziness or any other symptoms? Their real quick to basically say it's nothing. hat about medication you take. Are you sure it is not involved. I have very similar problems and am real tired of being sick with insurance and no onme can help me get well. I get no answers and can barely funtion. I go in an out of zombism all day everyday. Do you have memory problems?

[Syagrius]

I have been to a physiotherapist yesterday. He said I had de cervical disk C1 and C2 kind stuck. He tried to deblock it but he said I will need more appointments to overcome this. Could it cause facial pain and fatigue such as I am experiencing, like having a pinched nerve which would send signal in the face???

I am so tired of suffering.... Help..

Syagrius

[medco]

it sounds like a migraine due to eyestrain from playing that game too long. it doesn't seem like anything is wrong with your neck or eyes.

[Syagrius]

Help....................................

Today I was total zombie. Pain behind my eyes is a true hell. It completely jam my mind. I can't think at all........

..................................

Syagrius

[Syagrius]

I would say also that yesterday, I did ice skating and I felt so much pressure in my front head. It was painful. The burning and numbness was also heavy.

Thanks for any info...

Syagrius