I spoke too soon! I woke up in the middle of the night with excruciating pain in my eye. It took a long time and a lot of eye drops and cursing and moaning and waking up Jen before I felt any better. Fortunately, this morning it's feeling pretty good again.
I have some suspicions to what may be causing it. I think I need to stop pulling, pushing and squeezing my cheek so much when I'm thinking hard about something. Maybe it affects the musculature around the eye, or in any case makes it harder to close the eye properly at night, especially when my head is turned in certain positions.
I don't particularly want to see a doctor about it. Unless I have a broken arm or leg or a stab wound or something else obvious with which they have experience, the doctor visits tend to be very frustrating experiences and a waste of time, and the usual advise will be to "take this pill and come back in six weeks if it doesn't get any better".
I'm sorry you don't feel better afterall
However I echo everybody else - excruciating eye pain is absolutely not something to ignore. I don't think that pulling on your cheek sounds like a likely cause - but I'm not a doctor so I'm only guessing of course.
My experience is that with things like this - your doctor is likely to be helpful (assuming you go to a British GP?). Doctors can be unhelpful with vague symptoms - a pain in your leg, headaches, feeling sick, feeling dizzy, feeling tired... I guess there are lots of things it could be, including non-medical things (stress, diet, being very busy/active, etc), and they get these symptoms a lot and they're usually nothing/nothing serious. But with something quite specific like you've described, my experience is your GP will just refer you to a specialist, who will have a lot of experience and knowledge.
GPs vary from person to person - so if you don't like your current GP ask to see somebody else in your practice or even move practices, and if you don't think your GP is being helpful - say so. Say what you would like. Explain what you want. Ask them to explain what they're telling you.
Another thing from personal experience is that most people are happy to take what the GP prescribes and not worry about why it works - I sometimes ask a lot of questions about what is the problem and why my GP is prescribing/suggesting a particular thing. My experience is once they see you're interested, they're happy to explain, and everything makes a lot more sense, the doctors experience is a lot more pleasant and a lot less confusing/annoying.
I really hope you go to the doctor and your eye starts feeling better, IS.
