My left eye has felt like it has sand in it for 3 years now?!
Question: My left eye has felt like it has sand in it for 3 years now?
Obviously its not a grain of sand.
Eye drops like visine don't seem to help
I don't wear contacts.
Any idea whats causing this and what I can do about it?
As I'm not insured I cant afford to go to the eye doctor.
Answers:
Certainly not astigmatism...astigmatism doesn't hurt...and a scratched cornea doesn't have that symptom, and wouldn't last 3 years anyway.
A likely cause would be a small growth of some kind under your eyelid that is constantly irritating when you blink.
It is most likely something that require a specific treatment anyway, so you will have to find a way to see an optometrist about it.
Optician
I had this issue two years ago!! My eye felt like that (subtly) for a whole year, and eventually it started looking red and irritated. I went to my family practice doctor and she illuminated my eye with drops and a blacklight and detected small areas that lit up under the light (little scratches where the drops had been absorbed). So she gave me steroid drops to help heal it. Eventually it went away.
The scratches on my eye were towards the front (but it always felt like something to the side of the eye), so maybe that's why my eye eventually started showing inflammation. It wasn't a scratched cornea for me. It was literally just a bunch of scratches that were not healing. The doctor said sometimes simply dust or some small particle that blows in your eye can do this (maybe it was during a windy day here in dusty AZ).
ALSO she initially asked if I thought anything could be stuck in my eye somewhere, which I thought was funny. But she said she's seen patients come in with a similar discomfort feeling and she finds tiny little pieces of glass or debris towards the back of the eye!! Turns out one guy with this was in a car wreck 10 years ago and the windshield shattered, but he didn't start feeling anything until recently.
It is not possible for eyes to havea foreign object for 3 years. According to your statements you must have a reoccuring irritation in your eyes. Of course you will need to go to the eye doctor, it is better than dealing with that reoccuring feeling in your eye, and pay offi ntteh long run, once your problem is figured out
You could have an astigmatism perhaps, or most likely just a scratched cornea! Both would be relatively easy to fix, but you really should see a doctor!
Too bad - a scratched cornea, or something similar, is something you probably can get treated at an eye doctor.
Even if you are not insured you should save about $120 to see the doctor for an office visit.