Vision fluctuation & eye strain

[patrick]

hi rose,

how are you?
from what i've read you're doing a lot better lately. isn't it?
i will for sure get me a pair of readers asap.
just to give them a try and see what happens. hopefully the strain lessens a bit. sure would be nice!
may i ask what prescription readers you have? my prescription is only +0.75 and to be honest that seems so little to me that i can't imagine this would make a hughe difference. but on the other hand it could be possible. you don't know untill you try i guess.

patrick...

[Sammy B.]

Patrick as you know I am post-LASIK by a few years now and I do use readers (not just over-the-counter drugstore readers, but readers designed for my eyes) at the computer. I was experiencing headaches and deep soreness-type feelings behind my eyes. I was afraid it was dry eye. Well it was eye strain.

Get some glasses that will help you during your computing/reading hours and the strain will lessen.

Rose

[patrick]

Hi again,

Thanks for your input!

Rebecca: i recognize what you mean with not being able to draw a line between dry eye pain and pain caused by eye strain.
It is very difficult to tell the difference. However from my own experience i think that dry eye pain although this is of course very annoying isn't causing the headaches i think i experience from eye strain/vision problems.
I mean that dry eye pain is more limited to the eye and surrounding tissues and eye strain and vision problems are probably causing more problems like headache and muscle pain. But again,these theories i assume,i'm not sure of anything.
About the sclerals,do you suggest these could be a solution for me? One of the properties of sclerals is that they stabilize the cornea and therefore it is not unlikely that they can eliminate the fluctuation in vision for the greater part,or am i wrong here?
My dry eye is still in the moderate regions. Tbut has never been under 5 seconds and i'm not overly aqueous deficient.It is not surprising sclerals have never been discussed as an option,because my particular case just isn't considered severe enough to take that step yet.

Thanks again for your advise. It is highly appreciated!

Scout:

If i understand you clearly your fluctuation in vision is caused by swelling of the sinuses and eyes due to allergens?
Does your prescription changes during the day,like me? Or is it more that your prescription changes periodically?
So it's stable for a certain period and than changes back or forward to stay that way for another period?
If you had 4! Different glasses,with different prescriptions of course how did you decide which glasses to wear that day? Was it a case of trial and error?
I tend to react to many allergens to. This has always been the case with me,but before my refractive surgery it never ever caused any problems with my eyes.
I now use allergo comod drops 4 times per day. Is doesn't contain any preservatives. Can't say it has reduced symptoms considerably,but it doesn't add any additional problems as well so i just keep on using them. Maybe it prevents my eyes to react to certain allergens and maybe not. Nobody knows for certain Including myself.

Thanks for your advise!

Hopeful2:

I think with 10months it is not unusual to still have a bit of fluctuation in vision.
I guess there is still some healing going on and your vision will probably stabilize itself in the next few months.
Maybe make an appointment for a check up at the clinic where you had your surgery and ask them about these issues you have.
Whenever they propose to do a touch up procedure on you i'd say be very very careful with that!
Many people here have had a bad experience with such procedures.

Thanks for your reply!


Btw. I'm aware that my english is somewhat poor here and there. Sorry for that....

Patrick...

[Hopeful2]

WOW! I wonder if this might be happening to me?

I had my refractive surgery 10 months ago. I still have a prescription in both eyes, with one around +1 and the other around -1. I also find that my vision varies depending on the lighting. I think it might have something to do with a small ablation zone.

I wonder if all the changes in lighting over course of the day could account for eye strain and inflammation.

Scout, when you say your eye swells, do you mean the eyeball itself? Is it a perceptable difference in size? I have often thought that my eyes seem larger at the end of the day.

Thanks for the advice.

[Scout]

Yes, this has happened to me.

I had LASIK surgery in 1999, so it was a long time ago but I had this same problem with periodic changes in my prescription. It did cause strain, eye pain and occasionally migraine-like headaches.

You are very lucky that your optometrist has diagnosed the problem. This happened to several people I knew but at the time, no doctor would acknowledge that this could be a side effect of refractive surgery.

In the beginning, my doctors would encourage me to try to go without glasses or contacts. But even if the correction is very small, the strain of trying to see without the correction caused pain. So I started wearing glasses again and that really helped.

What I found out was that the cause and effect is very complicated and at times, confusing.

In my case, the refractive surgery and the post-surgical infection in my left eye that occurred caused my eyes to become extra sensitive and reactive to allergens and substances in my environment. The resultant inflammation and swelling caused my corneas and eyes (and sinuses) to swell enough to cause pain in my eyes and head and to change the correction--resulting in a change in prescription.

The resulting change in prescription caused more pain and headaches because I then had the wrong glasses prescription and a focusing problem. For a few years, I had about 4 different glasses that I used depending on the prescription for that day.

Years later, I figured out that I needed to find out what substances in my environment I was sensitive or reactive to and remove them from my daily life. I tried allergy eye drops for a few years and that helped in the beginning, but eventually they made things worse due to the preservatives and chemicals in my eye from the eye drops.

I have been fairly successful discovering any chemicals or substances or allergens I am sensitive to and removing them from my environment. I have worn the same glasses prescription for over 4 years now.

For me, the inflammation caused the swelling and the swelling caused the prescription change. Finding the source of the reactions that trigger the swelling and removing them from my environment has really helped.

Scout

[Rebecca Petris]

Patrick,

Yup, makes sense to me (I think). I think perhaps your optometrist isn't saying that the eye strain is causing dry eye per se but rather your symptoms (or a big part of them).

From personal experience honestly I can't draw any clear line between pain from eye strain and from dry eye. Also, the fluctuating vision that some of us get from refractive surgery can cause a LOT of eyestrain. I don't get any of this fluctuation or eyestrain when wearing RGPs or sclerals, but without them it's just as bad now as it was ten years ago.

[patrick]

Hi all,

I visited my optometrist a few weeks ago and she found out something new about my eye discomfort. I'm just curious if someone here has something similar like me.

My optometrist already suspected for a while that the culprit of my dry eyes and mgd is eye strain.

She now found out that my prescription varies during the day. It is not very much,but still it is present and rather undesired of course.

My prescription goes from -1.0 in the morning to +0.75 in the Evening.
My optometrist says that this could cause my eyes to have to focus all day long and obviously that is quite straining to the eyes. It also makes you blink a lot less than you should and if this goes on long enough it is unavoidable that mgd comes into the play.

All this could very well be caused by the refractive surgery i had in 2005.
The pressure in the eyes varies during the day and if for whatever reason the cornea is thin enough the shape will differ constantly. It has become unstable and therefore the prescription as well.

I already heard so many stories about what can cause dry eye and discomfort,but this explanation is all new to me. To be honest it sounds a little odd to me. But then again i'm not an expert in this field at all.

Anyone here who heard of this? Does it make any sense?

Any input is welcome of course!

Patrick...