A woman feared she was going to lose her eyesite after waking up with “red swollen eyes glued together”. Mum-of-three Katherine Hutchings, 59, feared the worst when her eyelids began to itch and swell in spring 2018.
Katherine, who is a full-time carer for her son, tried several prescription treatments which did not work. Despite trying remedies such as coconut oil and paracetamol, as well as being prescribed antibiotic cream by her GP, nothing seemed to improve her condition.
Some of the prescribed treatments even made her condition worse, causing them to become “so painful” that she had to stop using them. At their worst, she said her eyelids felt like “they were being stabbed with sharp needles” on a day-to-day basis, making her not want to leave the house.
Katherine's confidence plummeted. She stopped going to the gym as she “couldn’t bear the stares”, and was left feeling "years" older than she was. She was unable to cry about her situation due to her eye problem.
She said: “The irritation became increasingly worse and it got to the point where I randomly woke up with red swollen eyes glued together and my eyelids felt like they were being stabbed with sharp needles.
“It was agonising and I felt quite scared because as I gradually pulled at my lashes to ease my eyes open, everything was a blur and I feared that I was losing my eyesight.
“My eyelids started to crack and weep and then crusted over – they looked bruised as if I had been in several rounds of a boxing ring, with bruised shadows underneath.
“I found that everything seemed to trigger the swelling and even the dust on the floor of the gym which I attended, people kept asking me if I was okay as they could see my acute discomfort.”
After revisiting her GP, explaining how the condition was impacting her mental health, she was referred to a dermatologist and eye specialist, who diagnosed her with blepharitis. According to the NHS, blepharitis causes swollen, itchy eyelids. It’s not usually serious and can often be treated by washing your eyelids every day.
But Katherine - from Lavenham, Suffolk - was eventually “left to cope with the agony on (her) own” as her medical case was closed due to Covid.
Katherine said: “I told her that my mental health was suffering greatly because of how awful my eyes looked and she said she could refer me for cosmetic surgery to remove the excess skin once the blepharitis had calmed down.
“Surgery seemed rather extreme but then Covid hit, and my medical case was closed as it was a non-emergency situation.
“Over lockdown I was left to cope with the agony on my own.”
Determined to take matters into her own hands, she began researching the condition and realised the “menopause could have triggered it”, and came across Hydrosil eye gel – the “relief was instant” and she said she could barely notice her eye condition at all after a few weeks of use.
Katherine quickly ordered the gel in 2021, as well as their concealer, and within less than a week the results were life-changing.
She said: “My daughter spotted the improvement immediately when I collected her from school later that day. After a few weeks of using the eye gel my eyes had calmed right down and most of the redness had gone.
“The dry cracks gradually healed up and once I put the concealer over the top you could barely notice my eye condition at all.”
Katherine now sleeps better, has returned to the gym, and feels less self-conscious. She explained: “I’ve got my quality of life back – I no longer feel worried about facing people as my eyes feel normal again and I’m not in constant pain.”
