Dry Eye Mostly Resolved - One Lingering Issue - NEED FEEDBACK

[Sammy B.]

Hello to all of my dry eye friends -

I have struggled with dry eye since last year (probably earlier but I was successfully ignoring it) and recently got my lower ducts plugged with silicone plugs. The dryness (what I would term as burning, itchiness, etc) has eased up in both eyes 95%. In fact, my left eye seems fine now and has been for about a month.

I have one lingering issue and I am hoping someone can relate and give me some feedback:

In my right eye ONLY, not in my left, I have a pulling sensation or a general achiness. I will wake up with it - it is now constant whereas it would simply come and go before - but it is WORSE after hours of sitting at a computer (which I do for a living). It's like the whole right side of my head aches by 6 p.m. and I just want to patch up the eye. No drops seem to help.

I saw my trusty corneal doctor last week who said that a pulling or achiness is a muscle issue. He said the issue is probably two-fold: I have a dry eye so the focusing in the eye is off and if you couple that with my slight astigmatism and minor prescription you've got trouble.

He wrote me a prescription for glasses and I immediately ordered some - they are due to come in this week. I had LASIK so I am bummed to be back in glasses but if it resolves my problem I WILL BE ECSTATIC! I went from a -7.5 to near-plano so at least I gained some freakin' vision.

Has ANYONE ELSE had a pulling or achiness sensation that was resolved with glasses? I trust this doctor and I have everything crossed that the glasses will indeed be the final piece of the puzzle for me.

But...anyone else have this same issue and have glasses helped?

Thank you so much to all of you. I literally don't know what I would do without this board! MY CRUTCH!!

- Rose

[dgreen97]

i too have this problem of pulling and aching eyes every single day. i work on the computer every day as well for hours and i take very frequent micro breaks. no matter what i do i can't get rid of this aching feeling. my symptoms are just like yours where my eyes feeling like they are sore and ache. the problem is there most of the day but definitely gets worse when using the computer. i am starting to get more depressed about this because i can't go 3 hours when working on the computer without having this problem. i've tried using my computer glasses, my regular glasses, and without glasses and i still have the issue. i have a slight astigmatism in my left eye as well. no idea what to do from this point please help both of us

[calli66]

Astigmatism causes me to get headaches, too. I always get it on the right side around and behind my eye. My right eye is drier and I get sinus pressure on the right a lot. New glasses have helped it somewhat.

I also have focusing problems where my left eye dominates and I think my right eye muscles have to work harder because they are trying to keep my eye aligned.

Relaxation, palming, and breaks can help. I totally agree with what your doc told you. Don't be surprised if the new prescription needs more tweaking. It's hard to get the correction perfect, so if it doesn't help, definitely go back to the doc and try again.

glad you're doing better.

C

[Happymeal]

Yep, same here.

The aching / eye strain is how my dry eye first presented itself before it deteriorated into the well known burning / menthol sensation / soreness. For me it seems to work thus; milder DE symptoms are aches and eye strain (usually followed by a proper stinker of a headache), more servere DE seems to result in the burning and menthol soreness. I say mild and servere based on the appearance of my eyes, ie slightly red or angry looking.

I'm also a -7.0 and -7.5 with max -1.0 astigmatism lens prescription. Taking glaucoma medication aswell. At work I can hack 1.5 - 2hrs max on the computer before my eyes are wrecked for the rest of the day, although I do somewhat better at home where I have control over the environment.

A new lens prescription was my first port of call when I first started to get the aching and eye strain, afraid it didn't help me at all. Definately having an achey day today, and feeling pretty depressed about it.

[Sammy B.]

Thank you for the responses!

DGreen - Forgive me for asking but I thought you had LASIK, now I see this isn't the case. You have never had eye surgery, correct? Just so you know, when I was at my eye doc's office, describing the sensation, he said it is a muscle issue and before I could finish my sentence he said, "It feels like you need to close the eye, right?" This is precisely the sensation that I have. You may want to press your eye doc to refer you to a neurologist just to make sure there's nothing else going on. Also, eyes can change year over year so if I were you I'd get my prescription checked again to make sure it's current.

Calli - my feeling is the SAME as yours, it's around the eye. Drops don't seem to do any good at all, and I am hoping that's because it is a muscle issue and not a freakish post-LASIK issue.

HappyMeal - I too noticed the same thing when my dryness was bad - the strain wasn't even there (or so I thought), but the burning totally took over! I am sorry your problems have persisted. There are tons of tips on this board!!

All - Do you have allergies?
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I too am happy that I am doing better and I really believe in the beginning the dryness was so severe that it might have been "trumphing" the whole need-for-glasses deal. All I know is that last year I was ready to go postal in a McDonald's and this year I feel way better, having gotten the dryness under control.

I really hope the glasses do the trick. I am going to wear them for two weeks straight to see if this straining sensation lessens. Thankfully, glasses are "in" now!

- Rose

[Happymeal]

Same as Calli, the aching is always around and behind my eyes, usually worse with my left eye.

No allergies here, well none that i'm aware of. I always though allergies caused more itching than actual pain.

As for getting depressed, I think thats just part and parcel of DE pain. Character building don't you know!

[dgreen97]

nope never had lasik.. i just moved my eye appointment to tomorrow because i can't take this anymore. i'm supposed to be getting more hours at work and that means more staring at the screen. however i don't think its just the near sighted thats the problem. i went to see a movie last night and i had the same issue with aching eyes and such. i got out of the movie and my eyes were sore and kept going in and out of focus. to tell you the truth my eyes are doing that right now. they focus in and then go slightly blurry... focus back in and go slightly blurry... the aching sensation can definitely be felt if i move my eyes around as well. it feels like if you stretched a really sore muscle in your leg.

heres the thing i can't describe though... my boss at work does 8-10 hour days on the computer... he has way worse vision than me and wears contacts.. and i asked him if he ever has any problems with soreness and he said not really. only if i stay on the computer for like 13+ hours. are you serious? im on the computer for 2 hours and my eyes are aching like i haven't slept in 3 days. something else is going on here and i don't know what. this is definitely not "normal" computer eye strain. i've been working on computers for 16 years and never had a problem until a year and a half ago.

[Sammy B.]

DGreen,

I would press this eye doc to refer you to a neurologist. Especially if they do not see any signs or at least any major signs of dry eye (ie, corneal staining).

Please let us know how you make out.

- Rose

[calli66]

I have mild allergies to some fragrances and pollens, but not real bad. The lid of my right eye swells up a bit, and causes that eye to close more.

My face is slightly asymmetrical, crooked nose, crooked smile, drier eye.

There really needs to be more attention paid in the optometric research field---to eye strain due to computer use. Perhaps a testing environment where you look at a monitor, but eye position and eye movement sensors measure your tracking, binocular coordination, focusing distance, etc.----very specific to monitor use.

As for myself, I can read for hours, and I don't get this kind of computer-induced strain; I get only dryness.

Calli

[dgreen97]

i'll keep you updated tomorrow on what the doctor says. hopefully i can get some answers to these questions