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Hello.
I have been meaning to write on these forums for a while now but I always end up just reading what other people have to say instead of writing my own story.
Anyways, I've had dry eyes since November of last year. I live in Tallahassee. I'm 21 years old and I study Computer Science at FSU. When my eyes first started bothering me back in
November, I was living in a house with two of my college buddies. During the week, I was spending my time studying. This involved working on Software Engineering projects for FSU that had me behind a
monitor for 7-8 hour stretches everyday. On weekends, I was getting out a lot, hanging out with friends, surfing, drinking, drugs, etc.. I was not sleeping enough, I didn't care when or what I was eating, and the house
I lived in was filthy. People were always smoking inside the house. At the time, I had just landed myself a paid-internship researching for FSU, I was doing well in my degree, and I was having a lot of fun. I didn't care about anything else.
In November, I remember that I only noticed my eyes bothering me after being behind a monitor for quite a few hours initially. It didn't impair me with my work. It was more of a nuisance than anything else.
By the time December rolled around, my eyes were yellow in the morning. I needed to take breaks from my work every few hours and I had started using hot-compresses to get myself started in the morning
and it to make it comfortable enough to sleep at night.
January was a *****. Despite what many of you may think, we do have Winters that get chilly in North Florida. It's not that bad but people
run the heaters like crazy because this is still Florida and if it dips below freezing the sky is falling. I'm sure you guys can see were I'm going with this. The air got dry in my house, at work, and my eyes felt like ****. I finally went to the first eye Doctor I can ever
remember going to see in my entire life. She told me my eyes were fine and I should just use eye drops to alleviate the irritation I was feeling. She also asked if I drank enough water lol.
Needless to say, the eye drops didn't help that much. The hot-compresses were still working better for me at this time.
I got through a few more weeks before I decided to get a second-opinion from an Ophthalmologist this time. He did a Schirmer's test that had me at 3mm staining in my left eye, and 2mm in my right eye. He also said that there wasn't a lot
of oil coming out of the glands in my eyelids. I remember he told me that it was strange to see someone of my demographic with such a condition. I asked him what medical options were available to me. He gave me a blank stare and told me that I could try Restasis if I wanted to but he advised against it since it was a relatively new drug and he couldn't advise for someone as young as me. This guy spent about 5 minutes looking at my eyes only to tell me things that I already knew. I wanted to leave his office without paying him a cent.
I didn't have time to seek any more medical care after visiting this particular doctor. I had a busy schedule and I was trying to get a lot of work done at the Internship I was working.
My plan at this point was to just to cope with the Spring to make it till Summer when I would have time to head back to my home in Fort Lauderdale and pursue additional treatment options
with more competent doctors. In the meantime, I tried a lot of self-medications. The only two things that gave me any improvement in my condition were quitting smoking, and spending less
time in-front of a monitor. I got a whiteboard in my office at work and starting using that to diagram problems before I actually started writing code. When things got bad in the evenings,
I'd just get some water and shut my eyes for a bit.
I'm going to skip the rest of my story and fast-forward to today because I don't want to bore you guys.
I'm coming to the end of a two-week vacation in Fort Lauderdale and I'm feeling miles better than I did back in January.
I still have dry eyes and MGD but I'm not functionally impaired. Even though my eyes still Itch and Burn from time to time it's completely tolerable.
I've had a lot of different treatments done between February and today. Some were worth the time and money and others were expensive
and I didn't feel as though they brought me any lasting relief. I'm going to write about each one of them in detail under the appropriate sub-threads.
To be completely honest, I'm not even sure if the improvements I've seen in my condition are a result of my body naturally adapting itself to my condition, or if they are a product of all the treatments that I've used over the past year.
Regardless, I want to support people on these forums by sharing the things that have helped me cope with my condition.
I have been meaning to write on these forums for a while now but I always end up just reading what other people have to say instead of writing my own story.
Anyways, I've had dry eyes since November of last year. I live in Tallahassee. I'm 21 years old and I study Computer Science at FSU. When my eyes first started bothering me back in
November, I was living in a house with two of my college buddies. During the week, I was spending my time studying. This involved working on Software Engineering projects for FSU that had me behind a
monitor for 7-8 hour stretches everyday. On weekends, I was getting out a lot, hanging out with friends, surfing, drinking, drugs, etc.. I was not sleeping enough, I didn't care when or what I was eating, and the house
I lived in was filthy. People were always smoking inside the house. At the time, I had just landed myself a paid-internship researching for FSU, I was doing well in my degree, and I was having a lot of fun. I didn't care about anything else.
In November, I remember that I only noticed my eyes bothering me after being behind a monitor for quite a few hours initially. It didn't impair me with my work. It was more of a nuisance than anything else.
By the time December rolled around, my eyes were yellow in the morning. I needed to take breaks from my work every few hours and I had started using hot-compresses to get myself started in the morning
and it to make it comfortable enough to sleep at night.
January was a *****. Despite what many of you may think, we do have Winters that get chilly in North Florida. It's not that bad but people
run the heaters like crazy because this is still Florida and if it dips below freezing the sky is falling. I'm sure you guys can see were I'm going with this. The air got dry in my house, at work, and my eyes felt like ****. I finally went to the first eye Doctor I can ever
remember going to see in my entire life. She told me my eyes were fine and I should just use eye drops to alleviate the irritation I was feeling. She also asked if I drank enough water lol.
Needless to say, the eye drops didn't help that much. The hot-compresses were still working better for me at this time.
I got through a few more weeks before I decided to get a second-opinion from an Ophthalmologist this time. He did a Schirmer's test that had me at 3mm staining in my left eye, and 2mm in my right eye. He also said that there wasn't a lot
of oil coming out of the glands in my eyelids. I remember he told me that it was strange to see someone of my demographic with such a condition. I asked him what medical options were available to me. He gave me a blank stare and told me that I could try Restasis if I wanted to but he advised against it since it was a relatively new drug and he couldn't advise for someone as young as me. This guy spent about 5 minutes looking at my eyes only to tell me things that I already knew. I wanted to leave his office without paying him a cent.
I didn't have time to seek any more medical care after visiting this particular doctor. I had a busy schedule and I was trying to get a lot of work done at the Internship I was working.
My plan at this point was to just to cope with the Spring to make it till Summer when I would have time to head back to my home in Fort Lauderdale and pursue additional treatment options
with more competent doctors. In the meantime, I tried a lot of self-medications. The only two things that gave me any improvement in my condition were quitting smoking, and spending less
time in-front of a monitor. I got a whiteboard in my office at work and starting using that to diagram problems before I actually started writing code. When things got bad in the evenings,
I'd just get some water and shut my eyes for a bit.
I'm going to skip the rest of my story and fast-forward to today because I don't want to bore you guys.
I'm coming to the end of a two-week vacation in Fort Lauderdale and I'm feeling miles better than I did back in January.
I still have dry eyes and MGD but I'm not functionally impaired. Even though my eyes still Itch and Burn from time to time it's completely tolerable.
I've had a lot of different treatments done between February and today. Some were worth the time and money and others were expensive
and I didn't feel as though they brought me any lasting relief. I'm going to write about each one of them in detail under the appropriate sub-threads.
To be completely honest, I'm not even sure if the improvements I've seen in my condition are a result of my body naturally adapting itself to my condition, or if they are a product of all the treatments that I've used over the past year.
Regardless, I want to support people on these forums by sharing the things that have helped me cope with my condition.
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