My first good sleep in weeks!

[ljkq]

After weeks of painful nights caused by RCE, I seem to have hit on a combination of stuff that helped me thru the night! I had set my alarm for 2am as been my latest coping strategy, but woke up naturally at 1:30 with no pain, and my eyes actually felt OK- not dry or starting to get sore! I was so confident I put in a bit more goop and went to sleep with no alarm set, until I woke up at 6:30 feeling like a normal person! No light sensitivity, grittiness etc. as it has been for the past few weeks.

Here's what I did:
GenTeal gel drops a few times during the day and evening
GenTeal Gel at night
Warm compress before bed
2 aspirins before bed
Lots of water during the day

I had been using LacriLube as recommended by my Dr. before with not-great results, so I think the GenTeal Gel was the real success in the formula (or perhaps the combination of everything)

Anyway, I'm cautiously optimistic (well, euphoric really) to have some hope after 3 weeks of horrible nights and an emergency room trip, so I'm going to keep up the routine, and try for many good nights to come.

Thanks to this site, and the people who've posted! It's given me so much hope and good information!

[eva]

I saw you sent me a private email - I answered you and will give you the info you asked - plus I posted an answer about "goo and gels" etc.

eva

[ljkq]

Thanks Eva

I sent you an email, and I'm very happy to hear your eyes are feeling better!

[liz56]

I'm really glad to hear that things are improving!

One thing that helped me was to hear from a couple of doctors to keep doing the treatment for 12 weeks, even if you start to feel better, since it takes at least eight weeks for the epithelium to anchor to the basement membrane.

Thanks for letting us know that you are having success!

--Liz

[eva]

I was on Restasis for over a year (not available in Canada yet but I was part of a study group in Toronto) Anyway, my eyes were really awful when I started it and I was told it would take a couple of months to see an improvement.

Within 2 weeks I saw a huge improvement but after that there was no change . So after a year of going through the hassle of getting the drug I decided to go off it last January - no change Therefore I stopped using it.

However, I was using preservative free BionTears about 20 times a day until I found this so called preservative free GenTeal Gel is the US - since then life has been a lot easier because I don't go around putting anything in my eyes 20 times per day.

By the way - please DO NOT do what I did and still do but I am not all that careful about Bion Tears after I open the vial. I shove it in my purse and use it maybe as long as the next day or two if I opened another one and put it somewhere else. Never had a problem but I know it's asking for an eye infection. If that ever happened I would stop this bad habit but it hasn't happened - don't recommend anyone else to take chances.

I do use GenTeal Gel about once an hour and BionTears plus LacriLube at night. The Bion Tear waters down the Vaseline like Lacrilube which I found irritating.

From what I understand, people don't really "get better" with SS so I think I just found what is right for me product wise.

I hope everyone gets a chance to try as many products as possible until the individual "right one " is discovered

eva