By the doc

Going easy on the eyeliner can help cure irritating eye condition

Believe it or not but I was dishing out some make-up advice in the surgery last week.

Don’t worry, it’s not part of a new service by your GP.

We’re busy enough without taking on the extra burden of recommending the ideal foundation to match your skin tone.

I was advising a woman who had come in to see me to go easy on the eyeliner.

She had come in with a few nasty symptoms around her eyes, which had become sore.

They felt a bit gritty, and as if they were burning.

To me the area certainly looked quite inflamed and a wee bit scaly and greasy.

In the morning she’d wake up and she’d find her eye was sticky, leading her to think she had conjunctivitis.

These are the classic symptoms of something called Blepharitis, which is quite a troublesome condition that doesn’t have an easy cure.

This condition can be caused by a few different things.

It may be that a bug that normally lives peacefully on the surface of the skin gets under the surface and starts to cause a few problems.

Or it could be a reaction to the yeast that’s naturally found in the oil on the surface of the skin.

It might also be a blocked gland – one which makes fluid that lubricates the surface of the eye.

These conditions might also combine with each other as well.

This makes finding the cause and cure a bit of a fuss.

The best way to treat it is with regular eye hygiene, twice a day.

Those who are prone to Blepharitis probably need to continue this hygiene regime once a day whether they have symptoms or not. It’s a habit many find hard to get into.

It comes in three stages – warmth, massage and cleaning.

The traditional method is to press on the eyelids with a clean flannel soaked in very warm water for 5-10 minutes.

If the flannel cools, keep re-warming it in the warm water.

Massaging the eyelid helps move the oily secretions out towards the edge of the eye.

Cleaning can be done with boiled, cooled water and baby shampoo.

Other than that I told her to go easy on the eyeliner to help prevent a further outbreak.

Besides, it didn’t match her foundations.