Dr. Appointment = Good Eye Day?

[B-Eye]

Hello,
This has been driving me crazy. 9/10 times I have a Dr. appt for dry eyes, I have an unusually good eye day. I would rate a typical day at a dry-eye pain level of 7 or 8 out of 10. Days where I have a Dr. appt are like a 2 or 3! There have been dozens of days/appts like this, and I almost never have a day that good at random.

It is frustrating because the doc usually says things look ok, but those days are not representative of my typical dry eye condition. Maybe I am just nuts, but I was wondering if anyone else experienced a similar trend?

[Trac]

In general I feel better when I have a doctor's appointment of any kind. I have often if this is psychosomatic or what. This is not generally the case with my eyes, but they can be very bad. A torn cornea due to overly dry eyes looks as bad at the doctors office as it did at work. I have had such bad days that I have had to make emergency eye appointments a couple hours a head of time. But it is very frustrating to go to the doctor and have them tell you all looks well when it was not well 24 hours earlier.

[dave25]

This has happened to me as well. For me I think it's the fact that I"m going to be in a place where they know I have an eye disease so I just don't feel as uncomfortable. Basically I don't have to worry if people are looking at my eyes because I KNOW they are looking at my eyes.

Also, while your eyes may feel better that day if you have a serious underlying disease it"s not like that disease goes away on certain days. From what I have gathered from going to the doctor they are basically looking for dry spots on your eyes and if they don't see any they assume you are not in much pain. As much of us know already this is NOT the case. If I felt the doctor was not understanding my pain I would point blank say how much pain I was in and try to make him/her understand. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't work, it might be time to look for a new doctor.

[Trac]

A follow up to this is that my eyes almost always feel worse the day after I see the doctor. Don't know why.

[PotatoCakes]

Not me. When I see my eye doctor (any number of them since I've seen a lot), my eyes are always worse. I figured they had a lot of air movement or dry air or something causing it. When I'm sitting in the waiting room, I'll use up a couple of vials of preserv-free drops and then when I'm sitting in the chair, I ask if I can add more since sometimes they won't let me. It's interesting that some people have good days when they see the doctor. Dave25 has an interesting point, that he feels comfortable because they understand / know. Maybe for me it's not that they understand, but that I get very depressed when I see an eye doctor. I'm able to feel hopeful for a future cure or helpful drug on a day to day basis, as long as I'm not having a really bad day but, when I see the doctor, I feel so hopeless and so broken. All my life I've been so healthy, I eat right, I exercise, I do all of the right things and everytime I set foot in an eye doctor's office, I just feel like all that is just wasted, that people that have abused their bodies don't have these problems, and here I am, for all the time and effort I spend being really healthy, I'm broken, shattered like crystal thrown to the floor, no repair will make me whole again.

[spmcc]

I always have a bad eye day after I see the doctor because he/she always uses some dye or drop to do their tests. The dyes and anesthetic drops always dry me out extra bad!

[Hopeful2]

Oh my goodness. That must be what happened yesterday. The resident used 'floresene red'. He said it was an anesthetic drop used to measure pressure. He also used it to caluclate my TBUT. But my eyes felt so incredibly dry afterwards. Of course it didn't help that I was picking up my serum drops at the same hospital that I gave birth in. 'Who would have thought that I would be back here to get eye drops made from my own blood' . . . that gave me a good cry, which probably dried out my eyes some more.

[MaryVa61]

At most routine eye appts my eyes are in pretty good shape. Since those appts are scheduled weeks or months ahead, they just aren't always for the bad days. But the appt always results in a really bad couple of days (or couple of weeks or couple of months) afterward. I suspect it's BAK or some other irritant in the flourescien (sp?) drops (the yellow stuff). One doctor had me come back in 2 days later so he could actually see what happens. He told me I was allergic to the yellow dye and started using paper strips, which contain less dye. I don't know if they contain BAK or if they are as accurate checking pressure. I no longer allow the optometrist to check my pressure, since the ophthalmologist is treating my Glaucoma and the Opt uses the air pressure gizmo, which is incredibly annoying for someone with dry eye. His results aren't accurate anyway, when compared with the results of the sophisticated equip my ophth has.

[CanadianGal]

It's always the way with me like that for everything. Like Trac said it must be psychosomatic.

[MaryVa61]

I saw a research abstract recently (for fibromyalgia or chronic pain?) that concluded patients experience improvement in symptoms while at the doctor's office. They decided it was due to having hope of getting help (psychological) and due to distraction/focus. I've seen another study that said the body doesn't register pain as well when distracted by something novel, humorous or intensely interesting, etc. Maybe those apply to our eyes too. Sorry I can't find those research abstracts now. Can't remember enough of the terminology used for google to find them.

And I think I experience that. But other things also greatly contribute to the reason all my pain disorders are better at doctor visits. Sitting around, resting, in a well temperature-controlled environment doesn't provoke so many symptoms. If they saw me try to walk up a flight of stairs with the temperature above 70 degress in wind and sunshine or with a bunch of perfumed people near me, they'd see many symptoms popping up. The doctor's office is a nearly ideal environment for my body, until they put those nasty drops in my eyes at least. But pain from the drops doesn't hit until a day or two later.