Itchy Eyes

Past few weeks my eyes have been very itchy and going red all of a sudden. This is especially so for the left eye and it went all red on several occasions. Decided to stop being vain and lay off wearing my contacts for a while. But the itch still remained. After much nagging from Joe, I went to see an eye doctor. By eye doctor, I mean a real doctor specialising in optometry and not an optician. Did the usual eye test to test my sight, then she checked my eyes in detail, the underside of the eyelids and my cornea, etc. Even did an interesting test where strips of paper were placed at the bottom of my eye to test how well my eyes were producing tears.

The diagnosis -> my eyes were very dry especially the left eye. There were also white bumps called papillae on the underside of my eyelids [in the picture, you can see slight bumps on the left hand side of the lid], indicating allergy reaction, which she concluded was caused by my contact lenses. She prescribed eye solution to treat the allergy reaction, eye drops which I had to use to lubricate my eyes every hour or so and an eye gel to be used before I slept. I also had to stop wearing my lenses till the bumps were gone which she would check for me when I go back for a follow-up checkup. Sigh, that means I got to endure people saying I look like a teacher till my eyes fully recover!!! She asked me if I use my contacts for long periods of time and by long period, it means more than 12 hours each time. But then if you think about it, if you start wearing your contacts around 730am in the morning 12 hours means I need to remove my contacts at 730pm! How will that be possible? Maybe I should start wear glasses on weekdays and contacts during weekends? But can you ever look stylish with glasses? =((