Quitting drops cold turkey (4 years post Lasik): advice please!

[Guest]

Saturday was my last day using artificial tears. I had been trying to cut back gradually, but grew impatient due to frequent setbacks. I'd get to a day when I'd use drops only every 4 hours... but then be right back to using them once per hour again the next!

So...I quit them cold turkey on Sunday. (I still use Dwelle at bedtime, and when I wake up in the night... but that's it).

How has it gone so far?

Well, I'm in no way ready for the triumphs section (ooooo ... wouldn't I love to be ready for THAT! ... maybe some day...)... but anyhow...

I've still been wearing my Wiley X's indoors.. I think this has been key to making this cold turkey thing manageable... Also, I've been cutting my computer usage to only 30 min. per day.

Sunday, after I was awake for about an hour, my eyes were burning like crazy and getting pretty uncomfortable (also a few sharp pains on the eyeball... kind of freaky... hate those...)... I lied down and kept them closed for about 15-20 minutes, yawned to get the tears going, and this helped immensely. After lunch, they started bugging me again.. so I figured I'd spend a couple of hours outside (it was just a few degrees above freezing temps, so it was basically like putting my eyeballs in the refrigerator ... very soothing!)... the rest of the day went not too badly.

Shockingly, my eyes felt and looked a tad better than they did on Saturday when I was using drops once per hour... I was stunned! I mean honestly... I used no drops at all during the day! zero... zip... zilch... nada... I couldn't believe that my eyes could survive this, and not suffer for it!

Monday: my eyes felt a little better than Sunday... things seemed to be moving in the right direction.

Today (Tuesday) - my eyes felt a bit better still... don't get me wrong.. they're still dry... but not any worse than they were when using drops... i'm still a bit stunned by this! And... I'm starting to get sleep back in my eyes... just little bits... but geez... this is amazing since I haven't had sleep in my eyes since prior to my Lasik 4 freaking years ago!

So... I've come to the conclusion that my Lasik surgeon was completely incompetent for insisting all these years to just keep using drops and that I needn't worry about using too many because they can't hurt me...

ARGH!!!

I'm starting to suspect that my prolonged dry eye all these years post-lasik has been due to irritation from all these drops leading to inflammation which then led to more dry eye...

So... now I have a few questions:

If you have ever successfully tried this cold turkey thing, do you have any tips or advice for making it work?

How long did it take for your eyes to get back to normal (or majorly improved)?

How long (and how frequently) were you using drops before you gave the cold turkey thing a try?

My eyelids still stick to my eyeballs when I wake up in the night... I have to ever so carefully leak some drops in there to get them open... just curious what your experiences with this were...
(For prevention, I tried the tranquileyes... it didn't seem to make any difference...genteal gel is not an option... Dwelle seems to work the best so far...)

Any comments, advice, tips will be much appreciated!

Thanks for reading all!... sorry it's such a long post...

[LasikLady]

I am 3 years post lasik and I use no drops during the day 99% of the time. Once in a blue moon I will try genteal moderate drop only if I am way dry but to be honest I have never used them regularly because I have never liked the idea of being dependent on them plus let's face it they don't work for that long and then you are dropping again. I also feel like dropping alot would make my eyes worse.

I only use genteal gel to sleep in. My eye lids would be sticky to my eye balls when I woke up if I did not do this. And the gel works for me.

I think you are on to something. I think it will give your eyes the opportunity to make their own tears in the composition they should be. You may still be somewhat dry but I would still think that is better than dropping all the time.

The goggles as much as you can really are the thing to do. I find the more I can wear mine, the better my eyes will feel even when I take them off and for quite a long time. Just the onion goggles in the evening while I read or am on the computer are great. I don't really need them very much anymore but I figure, hey why not do as much as I can for my tear film when I am at home and nobody can see me (except for my hubby and thank goodness he thinks I look cute in them!)

Good luck with your experiment. I think you may really have discovered something useful.

[gz9gjg]

Hello SAAG,

I think you are definitely on to something.

I had LASIK in 2000 and have worn RGPs since 2002 to rehabilitate my vision. I have 7Eye sunglasses I wear outdoors to keep moisture in my eyes. I use eye drops as little as possible, because I found the more I use, the more I need.

I also have osteoarthritis in in my knees, and I find if I manage the inflammation, I have far less pain and swelling. I take one Aleve every morning; and most days that's all I need.

When I wear my contacts too long and irritate my eyes, I will occaisonally take one ibuprofen tablet in the evening to help reduce the inflammation, and it seems to help my eye comfort the next day.

The most significant improvement for my eyes has been to get my nasal allergies under control.

Good luck,

Lynne

[msienkiewicz]

SAAG,

I have a similar story as well. I did not have lasik but an accident for which I had a surgery and remaining scar tissue in my right eye. However, dry eye developed in both eyes with my left eye being the worst ironically.

At my worst, I was wearing lacriserts and began using restasis at the same time. I found that after a while I could get through the day without the lacriserts, and I upped the restasis to three times a day to get through the afternoons.

About 5-6 months in, I dropped the restasis to twice a day again which I am currently doing. I will most likely always have to use this to control the inflammation that the scar tissue has left behind, but this is leaps and bounds to wear I was when I was dropping every hour to hour and a half.

I believe that the lacriserts helped to reteach my eye to be wet; and of course, the restasis is helping as well. I am not always comfortable, but I bear through it as you do, resisting the urge to drop.

I believe that less is more, and that the body can heal over time. I definitely stretched it at the beginning perhaps even risking my eyes at time as they were bone dry, but I stuck with it.

I too wear my goggles as much as possible, and this helps temendously. I wear sleep masks to bed as well and use a humidifier. This helps to keep the scar tissue moist overnight as that is my worst problem.

I am constantly in tune with my eyes, but there are periods in the day that I forget about them and more hours in the day that I feel "normal."

Thankful to be where I am at,
Blessings,
Melissa

[Sammy B.]

My two cents...

Wanted to give my opinion on this matter. I think it's easy to overdrop when your doctors are telling you to simply "keep using drops."

If you have ever successfully tried this cold turkey thing, do you have any tips or advice for making it work?

My suggestion would be to try to tough it out as long as you can during the day. It is tempting to continually use something like a nice, cool, refreshing drop but when it's washing away what little tears your eyes have processed on their own, it's doing more harm than good. We have all read that nothing can duplicate a natural, human tear and I believe this to be very true.

How long did it take for your eyes to get back to normal (or majorly improved)?

I wouldn't say that my eyes got back to "normal" very quickly, but the overall chapped feeling of overdropping subsided in a couple of days or perhaps around a week.

How long (and how frequently) were you using drops before you gave the cold turkey thing a try?

I had been using drops since LASIK (January of 2008) but only in the mornings and at night. But I increased my usage steadily until June of this year when I was using them every 30 minutes. I think I looked like I was crying all day at work. Really heinous.

In closing I wanted to say that I have even noticed a great improvement in my eyes when I don't immediately do ANYTHING in the mornings. I get up, feed the cats, tinker around for a half hour or more....then I get on with my routine (shower, compressing, gland expressions, olive oil, but still no drops). When I immediately shower and do my compresses, my eyes feel worse all day long. It's almost like they never had a chance to do their own thing. Further proof, in my book, that drops are not always the answer.

[ringo]

I am so glad you are brave enough to try and stop using any drops whatsoever!

I am also happy for you that your eye condition allows you to tolerate "no drops" treatment at least to some extent...

However, just a pice of advice, and I do not mean to discourage you at all! just to have something to watch out for, just in case: dry eyes when left on their own can sometimes get real inflamed, and you might think the occasional burning and stinging is just the dryness but that can also be a sign of inflammation settling in;

and from experience, dry eye inflammation is an extremely vicious cycle that is almost impossible to break, even with long term anti-inflammatory treatment. The inflammation in turn dries the eyes even more, then the increased dryness causes more inflammation,etc.etc.

May be you should get a doctor to monitor your eyes for signs of inflammation while you are trying to quit the drops. Although I hope you truly are on your way to recovery!

Wishing you continued success,

[Guest]

Well, thought it was time for an update!

I'm still going cold turkey (except overnight)... and so far, my eyes are gradually improving both in appearance (they are significantly less red... even WHITE sometimes) and in the way they feel (way less irritated now!)

They still have a long way to go, but it feels like on the right track at long last.

I'll post a more detailed update soon when I'm not posting from my iPod like I am now... tough to type from here!

And a big thanks to all who have posted here!

[Guest]

Another update - I'm still improving, bit by bit.

I'm still steaming my lids for 5 minutes twice daily (and expressing the meib. glands afterwards). My meib glands look much better now (this is my own assessment... I shine a flashlight on them to get a better look haha... that's me playing dr.) Plus, I now can go several days without experiencing any burning in my eyes... NICE!!

I'm still taking tetracycline 250mg twice daily... still no stomach problems with it... so that's good.

Since starting Restasis on Friday (dr. prescribed it 3 times daily to start with), I've noticed that my eyes are improving at an accelerated rate compared to before that. How this is possible, I don't know... I assumed I'd have to wait a month before noticing anything... maybe it's just the lubricant effect at this point... who knows... but whatever it is, I'm just happy it helps! I put the Restasis vial in the fridge for 15-30 minutes before using it... it feels nice and soothing that way!

I'm still only using artificial tears overnight. My eyes still get stuck shut, but not crazy bad this past week... I now seem to be able to sleep as long as 5 hours before I wake up needing to put more drops in (a couple of weeks ago, I had to wake up every 2 hours!).

My eyes no longer get red and irritated when using the comp (still only 1 hr. per day self-imposed limit on that - I confess to stretching this to 2 hours for the past 3 days, and I haven't noticed any adverse effects from it... OMG!!! How awesome is THAT!!!... seriously... I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE being on the comp... I'm a total geek... what can I say!). I can watch TV a bit more now, and my eyes don't hurt when I read the newspaper for 20 minutes in the morning... so that's cool.

I'm still wearing my Wiley X's 24/7 though - my eyes dry out more when I take them off, so I figure I might as well be comfortable, right? Besides, it's not like my kids are old enough to know that most people don't wear goggles all day heehee (I have a 2 1/2 year old and a 9 month old)! As for my husband, well, he's awesome about it... so that helps in a big way too!

These improvements are all baby steps... but they thrill me... it's nice to be moving forward finally!

[ringo]

Congratulations SAAG! Your courage has paid off Your post is an assurance to everyone that things can and do improve and there is a way out of this suffering. Please keep posting. Wish you continued success!

[Lucy]

These improvements are all baby steps... but they thrill me... it's nice to be moving forward finally!

I'm just going to echo Ringo on your progress! I love your post and may you continue to improve and get your life back. You said it...."baby steps"..... because that is usually the dry eyes get better. It takes time and when we hurt so bad we can't keep our eyes open, we want it now. It does help newbies to know there will be light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks again for posting. Lucy

[Guest]

Well, the onset of cold winter weather has set me back a bit... I'm still wearing goggles, but I do end up using a drop of Celluvisc when I go shopping... the stores are just too dry for me... even with my Wiley's on.

After going weeks with almost no burning in my eyes, it's started to come back... even WITH my crazy goggles. So, I re-tried the Olive oil thing that was being discussed in another thread a while back. I find this gives me much longer relief from the burning than drops do.

Freaking dry winter air... why oh why do I live up here in the cold again?? oh yeah... because Canada doesn't have any tropical lands to move to... bummer... now THAT is a majorly awesome thing about the U.S.... you guys can live in all kinds of climates!... I'm so envious... you've got Florida... Hawaii... and heck, if anyone likes the snow, you can get that too! Hmmm... any immigration experts on here? How do I get in??