My Dry Eyes Experiment

[Tankie]

Hi everyone,

I just thought I'd share with all of you my dry eye experiment I am about to begin. First, a little history about me.

- I'm 23 years old.
- I've been suffering from dry eyes since I was 20.
- I have perfect 20/20 vision, but I'm always in constant pain unless my eyes are closed or I'm in the shower.
- I've seen 3 different ophthalmologists, none of which have cured me.
- I've tried lots and lots of dry eye drops for the stores, but none of them work.
- I am currently using 0.05% cyclosporine (also known as retasis).
- I wear swimming goggles around the house, which makes me look silly, but they help protect my eyes. If I take the goggles off, my eyes dry out rather quickly, sometimes they can't even last 5 minutes. I got this idea from "moisture chambers".
- If I go out the house, for example to university, then I have two choices... wear swimming goggles to class and be in light pain, or don't wear the goggles and be in extreme pain. It's a tough choice, but I opt for the extreme pain because I just don't want to be that weird guy with the goggles. It sucks though. I'm embarrassed by my problem.
- My whole life I've been a social person, but with this pain, I'm unable to be who I am, and I do very little socializing these days.

Ok that's enough for the history. I think you guys get the point.

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The Experiment:

Is it possible that the only thing that's wrong with me is that my eyes don't shut properly when I sleep at night? Imagine, for 4 years straight, having your eyes never close all the way when you sleep, and imagine how dry they would become.

I know for a fact that my eyes don't close all the way when I sleep. I have a laptop next to my bed, and sometimes when I'm trying to sleep at night I can see the little blue lights on the laptop cover (just below the mouse buttons).

One of my eyes is worse at closing than the other, although I know that both don't shut perfectly. Also, for my entire life, I've only been capable of winking with one eye. I am only capable of closing either both eyes at the same time, or just my left eye. My right eye cannot wink.

Here is the outline of what I am going to try do before I go back to university this September:
- Tape one of my eyes closed every moment of every day (the worse of the two eyes),
- Tape the other eye when I sleep at night.
- Continue to use my cyclosporine eye drop twice a day.
- I will remove the tape over the permanently closed eye twice a day for 30 minutes for two reasons.
- #1, to put the cyclosporine in.
- #2, to exercise the eye, because I don't want it to become lazy or something since I'm not using it 23 out of 24 hours a day.
- I will wear goggles at all times in addition to the tape, including when I sleep.
- I will try to keep my eyes closed for as much of the day as possible when I'm awake.
- I will try to keep the computer and TV time down to a minimum. Instead I will try to listen to audio tapes and the radio for my entertainment with my eyes closed.
- I will not leave the house, thank god I live at home with my family right now. This might sound extreme, but I don't care. I have to try this now because I won't have 2 weeks off until Christmas once September 7th comes around.

I will update you guys every day on how things are going. Feel free to leave feed back, or give support, or just say hi to me. Thanks for reading, I hope this works for me and I am able to get my life back that I've lost for the past 4 years. Also, I hope this helps someone else, even if it doesn't help me.

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By the way, in case anyone was wondering, I'm going to use band-aids as my tape. I will cut the band-aids in half, and use three half pieces per eye.

- One piece of band-aid will be placed near the corner of my eye closest to my nose, but sort of in the middle of the eye lid too. It will be placed between the corner of the eye, and the middle of the eye. This piece will pull the eye lid down.
- The second piece will be placed in the corner of my eye closest to my nose, to ensure that this portion of the eye is completely shut off. Before putting this piece on, I will make sure that my eyelid is closing this part of my eye.
- The third piece will be placed slightly to the side of the first piece, so as to help seal the other portion of my eye (furthest away from my nose).
- The far corner of my eye (furthest away from my nose) will not have any band-aid over it, but this is okay since this part of my eye closes properly without help.
- If you make an "O" shape with your pinky finger and your thumb, and extend your other 3 fingers, and pull the 3 fingers tight together, then the 3 fingers is essentially what my band-aid patch looks like on my eye.

Update:
Day 1 - Eyes feel pretty good today! They felt pretty dry first thing in the morning, but after putting the cyclosporine in they feel pretty good! Of course this is only one day, which means nothing in the long run. Lets hope this keeps up.

[tearless2]

Your experiment sounds interesting, I hope it works for you. I enjoyed how detailed you were when describing it. Please keep us updated!

[Tankie]

Thanks for the comment! I will keep updating things here

Day 2:
- I had my right eye taped closed virtually all day.
- I removed the eye patch a few hours before bed time for some "exercise".
- I went out for a 25 minute walk with no protection what so ever, no goggles, no eye patch, nothing.
- The left eye (the eye that I haven't been wearing the patch on) felt a bit of pain during the walk and after the walk, but the right eye was in pretty good shape by comparison! Hmm, interesting. I might be on to something!
- For the past 13 hours I've actually taped both my eyes shut (I was sleeping for most of these 13 hours) and just took the tape off now. They feel pretty good, but I'll let you know more about this next time since I've literally had the patches off only 15 minutes.

[Tankie]

Day 3:
- For this day, I taped both eyes completely shut.
- After having the eyes closed for about 13 hours straight, I took off the patches and watched America's Got Talent.
- Price Poppycock was very good lol.
- I was wearing my goggles the whole time while watching the show, and for the most part, the eyes were ok. The right eye hurt a little bit though.
- I went on a 25 minute walk after watching the TV. The left eye was in very good shape, the right eye hurt a bit.
- After these 3 hours of fun, I taped both eyes back up again and went to sleep.
- 7 hours later I took the eye patches off.
- Both eyes are feeling fine, but if I take my goggles off for a little bit, the right eye dries out fast. The left eye is in great condition right now.
- I've started to notice the skin above both my eye lids is really getting dried out because of the band-aids, and I'm thinking of taking a bunch of hours off right now to let the skin breath a little. I'll keep the eyes closed with the goggles on, but no tape for a little bit.

[Tankie]

Day 4:
Today was an absolutely terrible day. Please read this carefully for anyone who is following this thread.

I accidentally taped my eyes in such a way that they were held fixed slightly open. I never knew this because I was sleeping like this. When I woke up I was in terrible terrible pain. It was absolutely horrible! It was like putting shampoo in your eyes, and leaving it in there for hours on end. Maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration, but it was really really bad either way.

The reason this happened is because of the way I tape them. I couldn't see that my eye lid was still exposed a bit. If you're going to tape your eye lids closed, I recommend you use a different technique from the one I described above, because if you mess it up, you're going to be in serious pain.

In addition to this, band-aids are a bad idea. My skin is all dry, cut a little bit, and I have stretch marks on my face around my eyes that make my skin look like I'm 80 years old (when I'm only 23). Hopefully this will go away in a few days, but it looks really bad.

All in all, I don't recommend anyone tapes their eyes with band-aids, and if they do, I don't recommend doing it for more than the time that you sleep for, because the adhesive (sticky part of the band-aid) will damage your skin. Don't leave these things on your face for 20+ hours a day like I did!

If anyone is thinking of trying this experiment, I strongly suggest you get tape that specifically used for taping eyes closed. As of right now, I'm going to put the experiment on hold. I may start it up again if I can get my hands on a better type of tape.

However, don't stop reading this post. I have a plan B experiment already in the works, and I'll let you all in on it soon.

[Rebecca Petris]

Hi there,
Good luck with your experiment. Wish I'd seen this sooner, would have recommended a different tape. Bandaids' adhesive is too sticky for this use. Personally I like Micropore paper tape. It's worth shopping around and trying different things.

[Tankie]

Day 5:
A miracle has happened. I have found an eye drop that takes away the pain of my dry eyes! I can't believe this. I've tried at least 10 (maybe 20) different eye drops before, and none of them have worked. Even cyclosporine (also known as Retasis) doesn't work for me. But this stuff does!

Here is a link to the product: http://store.theratears.com/detail.aspx?ID=4

It is called Preservative-Free TheraTears Liquid Gel (28 single use containers). I strongly recommend buying this.

There is also the Preservative-Free TheraTears Single-Use and Bottled versions, however, they are not as thick as the Gel. I have ordered the bottle version of this to carry around with me, and the single use Gel I keep at home. The Gel is probably the better product, but they don't sell it in a bottle for some reason, only in single-use containers.

When you use the single use containers, don't throw out your left-overs. Keep the bottle in an up-right position so it doesn't leak, and save it for later.

These eye drops are preservative free, and encourage the production of tears, and claim that over time they will heal dry eyes. The point is, is because of this, you can use as many as you like, for example, you could put in 20 drops a day if you wanted, and not become addicted/dependent on them. If you don't trust me on this, do your own research, but you'll find out that I'm right.

These things are incredible! I know people reading this might have very little faith, especially after reading my "Day 4 entry", but if there's one thing you can trust, it's that I'm being completely honest and genuine with you all. These things really work for me, and I really believe they can help others too. What have you got to lose? 20 bucks? Just try it!

[tearless2]

I'm glad you found something that works for you. Have you tried tranquileyes?

Do you still think your eye problems come from incomplete lid closure? Is there a more permanent solution to this problem than eye drops?

[Tankie]

I'm glad you found something that works for you. Have you tried tranquileyes?

Do you still think your eye problems come from incomplete lid closure? Is there a more permanent solution to this problem than eye drops?

Thank you very much, I'm so happy I've found something that works! You have no idea (or maybe you do) how happy I am to use my eyes again!

I have never tried tranquileyes. Do you recommend that I do? I still wear my goggles when I sleep, and I wear them around the house as well as a precaution. I might stop doing this in a few days once I gain confidence, but for now, I will keep them on.

I do not know for certain, but I still believe that my problem may be due to my eyes not completely closing. So perhaps tranquileyes will end up being my cure, and theratears will be my medicine for the short-term. Time will tell I guess.

Thanks for responding by the way!

Update:
Today is another beautiful day for me. Eyes feel great. I'm using the TheraTears about once every 2-3 hours though. The eyes seem to need a boost about that often, but really, they feel great otherwise!

[Minni]

Tankie, since you mentioned listening to radio & so forth, as substitute for TV watching, I decided to offer a warning.

This probably doesn't apply to most people here, but I personally was zapped by BOTH computer monitors AND radio waves, so that now, both monitors & radios cause me bodily symptoms such as headaches & heart palps. Though coffee helps with the headaches, it also causes me esophagitis, so I need to dilute it w/other stuff (as I mentioned elsewhere on dryZone).

Here's why I was zapped:
Because I'd been listening prolongedly to the radio, at a distance of less than 2 feet from my sleep area.

The following factors zap people most:
... close proximity to EMF sources AND intensity AND duration. In my case, I was zapped by proximity and duration.

These EMF-intolerances tend to have a cascading effect.

It's like "radio waves" are "cousins" to various other types of waves which may have been first to zap you, so the similar waves can confuse the autoimmune system. It's not just me. Others have experienced the cascade effect too, as I know from having read testimonials by electrosensitives. In other victims' cases, it could have been cellphones or who-knows-what which zapped them first, and then the autoimmune system becomes confused by NON-cellphone waves, thinking they're the cellphone waves, even if they're not.

[Tankie]

Tankie, since you mentioned listening to radio & so forth, as substitute for TV watching, I decided to offer a warning.

This probably doesn't apply to most people here, but I personally was zapped by BOTH computer monitors AND radio waves, so that now, both monitors & radios cause me bodily symptoms such as headaches & heart palps. Though coffee helps with the headaches, it also causes me esophagitis, so I need to dilute it w/other stuff (as I mentioned elsewhere on dryZone).

Here's why I was zapped:
Because I'd been listening prolongedly to the radio, at a distance of less than 2 feet from my sleep area.

The following factors zap people most:
... close proximity to EMF sources AND intensity AND duration. In my case, I was zapped by proximity and duration.

These EMF-intolerances tend to have a cascading effect.

It's like "radio waves" are "cousins" to various other types of waves which may have been first to zap you, so the similar waves can confuse the autoimmune system. It's not just me. Others have experienced the cascade effect too, as I know from having read testimonials by electrosensitives. In other victims' cases, it could have been cellphones or who-knows-what which zapped them first, and then the autoimmune system becomes confused by NON-cellphone waves, thinking they're the cellphone waves, even if they're not.

Haha, when I go to bed tonight I'll be sure my computer is far away from me!

Thanks for the advice, although chances are this isn't an issue. But hey, it's worth a shot. I'll make sure I move my laptop further from my bed from now on.

By the way, for anyone looking for an update on how I'm doing, I'm going to primarily write all those things in this thread:
http://www.dryeyezone.com/talk/showthread.php?t=12171

I will check this post from time to time, but for the most part, I'm going to just discuss things in the thread I just linked you all to.