I'm so sick of this problem. It's so intensely annoying.
I'm currently going through a flare up. I personally have a complicated life and an anxiety problem, but I made progress and recently quit anxiety meds. I can adjust to that and I am making progress, however, blepharitis, which was under control for years, made an appearance. I can't relax if I have a flare up of this. I can't read a book or take a walk and enjoy it if my eyes sting. I struggle to get work done. I don't know when the flare up will be over.
After about a decade since this whole thing started, I am so done.
It used to be easy to control, but I once stopped using the wipes because I didn't know if they did anything. I had experienced zero symptoms for a while. Then I experienced symptoms again and thought "I guess I used those for a reason after all". This was about 7 years ago. Resuming the wipes helped the symptoms and everything was ok again, but a week later, I got extra busy and stopped using the wipes for a few days again. I didn't take it as seriously because blepharitis wasn't a big problem back then, it was a minor thing and not something I respected and feared the way I do now. But then the wipes never helped again. According to an optometrist I saw, stopping and then resuming treatment twice messed something up and it became stronger. I had no idea this could happen.
Since then, its different. I have worse flare ups, and its harder to control. I don't use the wipes anymore as they don't work, and use naviblef foam now. The naviblef is better apparently and still works even though it became stronger.
I found a decent doctor who tells me all about how to make it better, it was his idea to switch to naviblef, he gave me multiple tips that help, and he can look at my eyes with that thing ophthalmologists have to inspect your eyes, and tell me if I am doing the hygiene routine properly or should scrub better, how to do it etc. He's also done the blephex thing a few times, and also "expresses" my meibomian glands which I think helps.
I've been doing good most of the time actually, its just that its a real problem now. I have to take it very seriously now. Sometimes I have a flareup that won't go away until I overthink my hygiene routine and figure out a detail I'm getting wrong, such as not rinsing with abundant enough water, or not scrubbing the base of the eye lashes for long enough or with the right technique. I have to do it just right and I am sometimes in pain until I figure it out.
Anyway, back when I didn't know how this works of if I could make it stop, I saw different doctors to try to find someone who would help. Some were so useless, for example one just told me that the eyelashes falling off and the stinging/itch were just normal, and that the eye lashes fall off because the follicles die, but it's all normal. "Nothing to worry about, it's all a normal part of the blepharitis process". Did he just have no idea how to help? Or did he assume I just went there for reassurance and to be told I'm ok? Who knows. He also scared me by telling me the follicles die, but I later noticed those lashes mostly grow back. If he was trying to reassure what he thought was a whiny anxious patient, he could not even get that right. I said nothing to any of those doctors, just looked for someone else. I wasn't very assertive at all back then.
Right now I am going through a flareup as I said, and it caught me off guard after years of doing so well. It started out very mild and I admittedly neglected it at first (as in, didn't really troubleshoot my routine). Then tried to improve my routine and it worked for a few days then got worse. I am now scrubbing more when I do it, in order to truly get rid of the biofilm that causes this problem (or whatever), which is actually how I got better initially. The improvement over the last week has been obvious, but I've had a few bad days now and I am stressing over the recovery being ruined. I should not stress over it, to be fair. But I wonder if I am doing something wrong. I'll try to be gentler (while still making sure to scrub the base of the eyelashes well enough), rinse well, never scratch my eyes, I also will make sure I don't use a facial cleanser on my eyes after the naviblef, as it may be too much or leave a residue.... I guess. Other than that I'm out of ideas (I've gone through this feeling many times btw). Because I think the cleansing routine itself is ok, so I won't change that for now.
I hope this does the trick. Until then, my eyes will sting and be itchy most of the time.
A trick my doctor told me to know how I'm doing is to feel my eyelashes and see how soft are. If they are very soft it means I am doing the hygiene routine right and will get better, if they feel a bit hardened, it means the hygiene is not good enough. They are soft right now, so I will pay attention to those things but still stay consistent with the same cleansing technique.
I hope that works, idk when or if I will be ok... Every time this happens I get scared that this is the flareup that doesn't go away, since I had that problem back then of the blepharitis becoming stronger. This makes me more nervous than it should, and part of the problem is that every flareup reminds me of when I didn't know how to make the pain go away, when I saw my eye lashes falling off and got anxious (now not so much because I noticed they mostly grow back), the useless doctors I tried, the time the blepharitis became stronger forever... Fuck
I already have an appointment with the doctor I like, I'm just trying to vent and share with people who go through a similar problem, but if you have advice that you think will be helpful, feel free to share. But I'm mostly looking for people who relate and to hear how you're doing. I will be thankful for any supportive comments.