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Hello everyone,
Excuse me for the dramatic title, but I'm quite certain some of you will agree. Don't get me wrong: I love my eyes when they function correctly, but (right now too) sometimes, it's just horrible.
When I think back about my youth, I don't think I ever had real difficulties with me eyes.
The first time I consciously noticed a problem with my eyes was when I spent one weekend in two weeks with my dad. My dad smokes a lot -A LOT...-, and my eyes got really irritated because of that (I think?). I couldn't stop rubbing my eyes, and although that was of a very temporary relief. It didn't really help in the long term.
Now, about 5 years later, I'm still suffering from this horrible 'dissease". And I would like to do my story.
I would like to describe whatever I'm feeling, as detailed as possible, because I'm sure there is something to be done about this.
Everytime I need to concentrate, every time I think about it, every time I'm in an area with dry air, blowing air, airconditioning, ... my eyes start to get irritated. Once that happens, I can't help but concentrate on it, which seems to make it even worse...
I've already been to quite some eye doctors, but they don't really seem to find something. All have prescribed me eye drops, but honestly, those just don't seem to do anything for me. I drop them in my eyes, and not a second later my eyes are blinking like crazy again.
Once I went to a specialized hospital (I'm from Belgium, we say University hospitals), and I felt almost hurt. The doctor tested my eyes, and he couldn't find any problem. The quality of my tears was good, excellent actually, and it seemed that I was just some kind of attention whore.
However, after the tests my eyes got incredibly irritated, but still I was just some sort of attention whore...
After this experience, I'm honestly scared to go to other eye doctors. Because they don't even seem to be able to help me anyway...
Now, you know a little bit more of me.
I'll now try to describe what I feel, and what I discovered about my dry eyes.
The dry eyes come up quite irregularly. There's a lot of factors which influence my eyes.
Using the computer, watching tv, heating, airconditioning, the wind blowing, ...
Sometimes I can't really stand light, but on days that my eyes are fine, I don't have any problem with lighting.
My eyes are incredibly dry, sort of itchy, and they can really burn. As if my eyelids are full of dry, dry sand scraping over my eyes. However they don't always burn.
Right now, for example, they are just incredibly heavy, and I have difficulties keeping them open, so I squint them to give me some more relief.
I also tend to notice that I start to get a little spastic with my whole body. I sway my arms all over the place, as if to shake out the uncomfortableness...
Sometimes, but not always, I see some red veins through my eyes.
What helps them 'relax' a little, is put some sort of pressure above it. I rub in them, which gives me a brief relief, or I put my hand above them (on my eyebrows) and push a little. This seems to ease the pain a little.
Coldness seems to help to. When I'm in a room and my eyes are irritated, I sometimes go outside, which helps me relax them...
Also: I constantly need to yawn, to produce more tears. I make the tears and they seem to get stuck in my eye lashes. After a few seconds however, my eyes start to get irritated again.
Another thing I also would like to notice is that it sometimes comes up in "flares". Sometimes it lasts 30 minutes, and then I don't have any big discomfort during 10 minutes, after which it reappears again...
In the morning (not always) my vision is blurry when I had a bad evening/day before. Almost every morning I open my eyes with a dry, burning sensation.
I was recently diagnosed with blepharitis on my skin (eyebrows, nose) and I also noticed I have it a little on my eyelashes. I use a product now and then to clean them, but this doesn't seem to make any difference.
Lately I have been having dry eyes a lot again. The later it gets, the more problems I get.
Today, for example, I was in a restaurant and my eyes started to burn. It's really annoying that you can't even enjoy a nice evening out, without your eyes hurting. When they start to hurt, it takes a lot of power to actually concentrate on other things besides my eyes. So I get even more tired and cranky...
I'm sorry the whole text I've just written is a bit all over the place, but at the moment my eyes are hurting quite a bit, which makes me less 'organised'.
I really do hope I will find some relief via this forum, because honestly, this is a serious handicap.
Sam
Excuse me for the dramatic title, but I'm quite certain some of you will agree. Don't get me wrong: I love my eyes when they function correctly, but (right now too) sometimes, it's just horrible.
When I think back about my youth, I don't think I ever had real difficulties with me eyes.
The first time I consciously noticed a problem with my eyes was when I spent one weekend in two weeks with my dad. My dad smokes a lot -A LOT...-, and my eyes got really irritated because of that (I think?). I couldn't stop rubbing my eyes, and although that was of a very temporary relief. It didn't really help in the long term.
Now, about 5 years later, I'm still suffering from this horrible 'dissease". And I would like to do my story.
I would like to describe whatever I'm feeling, as detailed as possible, because I'm sure there is something to be done about this.
Everytime I need to concentrate, every time I think about it, every time I'm in an area with dry air, blowing air, airconditioning, ... my eyes start to get irritated. Once that happens, I can't help but concentrate on it, which seems to make it even worse...
I've already been to quite some eye doctors, but they don't really seem to find something. All have prescribed me eye drops, but honestly, those just don't seem to do anything for me. I drop them in my eyes, and not a second later my eyes are blinking like crazy again.
Once I went to a specialized hospital (I'm from Belgium, we say University hospitals), and I felt almost hurt. The doctor tested my eyes, and he couldn't find any problem. The quality of my tears was good, excellent actually, and it seemed that I was just some kind of attention whore.
However, after the tests my eyes got incredibly irritated, but still I was just some sort of attention whore...
After this experience, I'm honestly scared to go to other eye doctors. Because they don't even seem to be able to help me anyway...
Now, you know a little bit more of me.
I'll now try to describe what I feel, and what I discovered about my dry eyes.
The dry eyes come up quite irregularly. There's a lot of factors which influence my eyes.
Using the computer, watching tv, heating, airconditioning, the wind blowing, ...
Sometimes I can't really stand light, but on days that my eyes are fine, I don't have any problem with lighting.
My eyes are incredibly dry, sort of itchy, and they can really burn. As if my eyelids are full of dry, dry sand scraping over my eyes. However they don't always burn.
Right now, for example, they are just incredibly heavy, and I have difficulties keeping them open, so I squint them to give me some more relief.
I also tend to notice that I start to get a little spastic with my whole body. I sway my arms all over the place, as if to shake out the uncomfortableness...
Sometimes, but not always, I see some red veins through my eyes.
What helps them 'relax' a little, is put some sort of pressure above it. I rub in them, which gives me a brief relief, or I put my hand above them (on my eyebrows) and push a little. This seems to ease the pain a little.
Coldness seems to help to. When I'm in a room and my eyes are irritated, I sometimes go outside, which helps me relax them...
Also: I constantly need to yawn, to produce more tears. I make the tears and they seem to get stuck in my eye lashes. After a few seconds however, my eyes start to get irritated again.
Another thing I also would like to notice is that it sometimes comes up in "flares". Sometimes it lasts 30 minutes, and then I don't have any big discomfort during 10 minutes, after which it reappears again...
In the morning (not always) my vision is blurry when I had a bad evening/day before. Almost every morning I open my eyes with a dry, burning sensation.
I was recently diagnosed with blepharitis on my skin (eyebrows, nose) and I also noticed I have it a little on my eyelashes. I use a product now and then to clean them, but this doesn't seem to make any difference.
Lately I have been having dry eyes a lot again. The later it gets, the more problems I get.
Today, for example, I was in a restaurant and my eyes started to burn. It's really annoying that you can't even enjoy a nice evening out, without your eyes hurting. When they start to hurt, it takes a lot of power to actually concentrate on other things besides my eyes. So I get even more tired and cranky...
I'm sorry the whole text I've just written is a bit all over the place, but at the moment my eyes are hurting quite a bit, which makes me less 'organised'.
I really do hope I will find some relief via this forum, because honestly, this is a serious handicap.
Sam