Help - What happened to me?

[jlcabral]

I'm a new member and I am desperate for information on what in the world has happened to me. I had zero dry eye symptoms before a posterior capsulotomy on my right eye two years ago. Then mild symptoms until June this year, when I had cataract surgery on my left eye.

After surgery I was in bed 18 hours a day for a week. I would have so much eye strain by 1 PM, that I had no choice but to go back to bed. At the time I thought it was because they popped a blood vessel giving me the shot. I now know it was dry eye.

I went to Ohio (dewpoint 60's) and felt ok for 12 days, then returned to the Denver area and have gotten worse and worse and worse. My surgeon was clueless - I finally told HIM I needed to see a dry eye specialist 2 months after surgery when the new glasses failed to solve my problems of severe eye strain.

I have been the whole route with the specialist, now on Restasis, serum drops, doxycycline, and have to use PM ointment in my right eye 4 times a day, which means I have to cover it. I become essentially blind at that point. I have lost all quality life, this is a daily struggle just to survive. Ironically, my right eye is the worst, while surgery was on the left - but the left is very bad also, requiring constant eye drops and hot compresses.

Everyone says cataract surgery doesn't cause dry eye. My doctor says "it's not supposed to be like this after cataract surgery". Does anyone have any idea what possibly could have gone wrong in the surgery that would lead to these problems?

Thanks for any info.

Jan

[Rebecca Petris]

Hello and welcome.

It is possible for cataract surgery to cause dry eye (there are studies out there on this recently) but it wouldn't usually be anywhere NEAR as severe as what you're describing. Dry eye can be very complicated. It has frequently been reported here that dry eye happened after X (anything from surgery to a bad reaction to an eyedrop to an unrelated illness). Sometimes it's really the cause, or a trigger of a serious auto-immune reaction of some kind, and sometimes it's a trigger that puts people in a vicious cycle when they already had some underlying predisposing factors but no actual symptoms.

I am so sorry about what you're going through. Obviously you're at a debilitating stage. If you haven't already I'd recommend getting into some moisture chamber glasses ASAP as hopefully this could improve your functionality & pain levels at least somewhat while you work on making some progress with diagnosis/treatment.

[jlcabral]

Thanks, Rebecca - I appreciate your expertise, and your concern. I do have the Guard Dogs II, but find the whole thing difficult, especially since I have to change glasses for computer use and then for distance (although I really shouldn't be on the computer at all).

I took one of the sleep masks and cut a hole in it for my "good" eye. Then I put my glasses over this, which works lots better than the eye patch, which is practically impossible to use with glasses (at least my glasses).

I spend from 10 AM on each day with ointment in the bad eye, covered by the sleep mask. This seems to keep the whole "bad" eye pretty moist. I can try the Guard Dogs over the top of the mask & glasses, but it gets pretty cumbersome

Jan

[Lucy]

Jan, can you cover one side of your eyeglasses with a piece of cloth, a piece of paper or the like. Maybe I'm not following you, but it sounds like you want one side of your glasses closed.

I have had cataract surgey on one eye and need it on the other. I had Lasik prior to that, though, and am afraid to have the right eye done. The cataract fix on the one eye was so far off, my eyes are very uneven in correction.

There was something I saw for the covering of one side of glasses. It was made specifically for this. I don't know if I can find a link, but if I do, I will.
Lucy

http://eyepatch.net/index.html

Jan, if I'm misunderstanding your problems, I'm sorry and just ignore me.

[jlcabral]

Thanks, Lucy - great idea, I could make my own. I could make a customized sleep mask also - even different ones for different seasons like Halloween and Christmas When I go out in the world now, I tell people I'm celebrating Halloween early, as that's what it looks like with my one eyed sleep mask.

I'm trying the Guard Dogs goggles today with just a piece of fabric covering the one eye.