Really down and out fro the past 6 months

[rooneyandfergie]

Hi everyone,

It's been six months since i started having eye problems. Despite my best efforts to contain and improve the problem, the DE problems are still a MAJOR disruption on my quality of life. It has been really discouraging and frustrating thus far. I have tried almost everything practically feasible from taking omega 3 supplements to doing lid scrubs.

I experience dull aches in the eyes and eyelid areas and my eyes burn sometimes. The feeling is like I sometimes just find it a challenge to keep the eyelids up. In addition, my eyes are red a lot of the times. I have also found that my eyes seem to be sensitive in the sense they are more allergic nowadays probably due to the dryness.

I am in my 20s and its kinda discouraging to know that these problems could plague me for the next 50 years or more. It feels like nowadays a lot of the things i used to love doing has been disrupted by my eye problems. Daily things like using the computer, movies, driving which i didn't think much of in the past. My social life has also been affected. I mean you don't look good going out and sporting red eyes. I used to be much more active and outgoing. I am also starting work in an IT company soon and I am indeed concerned about the ability of my eyes to tolerate the computer. I don't really want to shift to another industry because that's what i majored in college.

It's like having dry eye problems isn't bad enough. I still have to deal with the freaking red eyes that don't seem to go off. I really long for the days when my eyes were still fine. It seems that currently medicine isn't fully able to resolve dry eye problems nor the chronic redness that many suffer from. It really takes a lot out of you emotionally. It's like nowadays i cant go thorough a single day whereby my eyes don't give me problems and that I don't spend time looking to see if it's red. The eyes are definitely one of the worst places in your body to have a problem in.

I regret the lengthy complains but this is probably the only place that people will understand. Many people around me don't get how dry eyes can cause so much hindrance and upset. It has been a really tough 6 months for me and I have felt really down and out emotionally during this period.

[littlemermaid]

Hey. We know from your posts that you are clued up - but what are you thinking about your eye doc? Good enough or not?

[rooneyandfergie]

Hi littlemermaid

Hi littlemermaid,

I've actually already been to 3 doctors. I would think that the one I am currently with as being competent due to his experience and from my conversations with him. I do think he's a good doctor though i am a bit confused because of the following situation.

On my first visit to him for another unrelated eye condition, i mentioned to him the discomfort i feel in my eyes. He felt it was most probably due to dry eyes. He did not check for dry eyes though as he felt that it was more important to treat the other unrelated eye condition first and keeping it in check before concentrating on the dry eyes. He mentioned that he would give me Restasis on the next visit.

On my last visit to him, he used the slit lamp and looked at the surface of my eyes. He concluded that it was not dry. He gave me Zaditen instead. He told me it was an NSAiD. He said it could do what Restatsis does by suppressing inflammation at a much lower cost. He felt it unwise to start Restasis since it was a long term treatment and it would be expensive. He told me to go through a 2 month course of Zaditen. As of the current moment, Zaditen does provide a certain amount of relief but the discomfortable symptoms that I had felt still plagues me a lot.

This is puzzling for me. I do feel from the symptoms i feel that it is dry eyes. In addition another doctor i had seen before my current one had also mentioned i could have dry eyes though he did not run any tests. He gave me Refresh tears.

[littlemermaid]

Is he mistakenly thinking your eyes are red from an allergic reaction? Zaditen is antihistamine. You are pretty sure it's dry eye. How often is he monitoring your glaucoma? Has he looked at your meibomian glands? Does he think you don't have blepharitis any more and tear film is normal?

But you don't find your tear is normal, your eye feels dry, and you are thinking your eye surface is stressed, causing vascularisation.

It's so very difficult to find the perfect sympathetic doctor but you are a programmer needing to manage these eyes really carefully. Every day my daughter is using artifical tears constantly, humidifier next to computer, wraparound glasses, lid hygiene and MG expression, antibacterial ointment, steroid eyedrop to control inflammation, trying to eliminate allergens from her environment, shampoo and face wash the mildest possible. All this allows her to get on with her life, pretty much.

I am thinking you need to know whether your meibomian glands are working or not. Is it allergy or not. And we need to know that your glaucoma is being monitored properly. We saw a lot of docs before we found one we're OK with, for now.

[msienkiewicz]

Do not use anything with BAK as a preservative. I feel that only made my condition worse.

Restasis is long term, but it helped me with the lacriserts and IPL facial treatments to get the dryness under control. Both are preservative free.

I slowly weaned myself off of it and am now using nothing at the moment.

You may need something long term like restasis to help the eyes get to a non inflamed point. I used it for seven months.

Blessings,
Melissa

[rooneyandfergie]

@littlemermaid
All my future appointments with him will be every 6 months since the glaucoma eye drop has managed to keep the eye pressure in check. The glaucoma is being monitored properly and the doctor is actually a glaucoma expert. I did previously mention to him that my left caruncle( the little muscle at the corner of the eyes near the nose) was kinda itchy since using the eye drop. I asked if it was due to an allergy to the drop. He mentioned that it was most probably not because only one eye seems to be affected. I am using the drops in both eyes. He could be giving Zaditen for the itchy caruncle.

But i do feel that the main motive for Zaditen is because he feels it can help my dry eyes. This is because i asked him why he was not giving me Restasis. His reply was that he felt my eyes were not dry and that a short 2 month course of Zaditen has the same kind of anti-inflammatory action as Restasis. He felt that i need not go on long term Restasis treatment as it was expensive and that my eyes weren't really that dry anyway. I am not sure if it's the same thing with Restasis though i read in the product manual that Zaditen has a non-specific anti-inflammatory activity.


I did mention to the doctor that I had a history of blepharitis. He checked my eyelids using the slit lamp but didn't really see any inflammation of the lids. He said it could be the 'dandruff' form of blepharitis instead of the 'staph bacteria' form which causes more inflammation. He gave me 2 months of commercial lid scrubs. By checking the Meibomian glands, do you mean using the slit lamp to visually inspect it? My doctor did not really mention much about that.

You mentioned that your daughter has her MG expressed. Do you mean IPL treatment? That seems a lot of stuff your daughter needs to do to get the eye comfortable. How often is she using artificial tears?

@Melissa

Hi Melissa,

Apart from the glaucoma eye drop and Zaditen, nothing that i use contains BAK. I can't avoid the use of glaucoma eye drops for obvious reasons. The rest of the stuff i use, i have avoided those that have preservatives. It's nice to know that you are free of your dry eye symptoms.

How bad were your dry eye symptoms before? For example, did you have eyes that looked red before or blepharitis? You're using nothing now, not even artificial tears? I assume you are no longer using Restasis now. So did you see or feel any improvement before the 7th month of using Restasis? Things like using the computer and driving no longer bug you nowadays?

[rooneyandfergie]

In addition, I understand that glaucoma eye drops can cause dryness due to the fact that they contain BAK. But in my case, I don't think that that's the case because my eye discomfort problems started before i used the glaucoma drops.

[littlemermaid]

Thanks for sympathetic reply. Yep, she does a lot of stuff all the time to keep eye surface comfortable and I was wondering if you realised this is normal; main problems skin, lid regime, air conditioning, computer use, esp gaming, facebook. Easily does 4 minutes plus staring at the screen without blinking (paediatric dry eye is not sensitised like adult). Aargh.

We are doing warm compress expression ourselves. Works some days. Child:IPL = difficult. Need to find precedent, extremely skilled paediatric ophth. Thanks for asking though. NB we do know the glands are blocked because of dermatology, may not be so for you.

As Lucy was saying in previous thread, we are wondering if you are doing enough to protect your eye surface esp on the computer? Littlemermaid uses bland non-preservative moisturising eyedrops 6x daily on strict regime, checks tear film in mirror, uses same drops constantly near fans, a/c, on computer. Also eliminating allergens, perfumes, preservatives, detergents from environment.

As Melissa says,

You may need something long term like restasis to help the eyes get to a non inflamed point.

, which is what we do, then tapering off, watching for flare ups, to get a successful regime with minimum drug intervention. Although sounds like your doc has a plan.

As Dr Latkany says, many causes of dry eyes, tricky diagnosis. Seems like an Art getting sensitised to what makes it better:worse and designing your own regime. Most success stories seem to work like this.

Quite like the sound of your doc now, he seems the careful intervention type, is 6m too long for follow up or are you OK with it?

[rooneyandfergie]

Yup, I do try to use artificial tears more often when i am doing things that are more visually demanding such as driving or computers. I also try to avoid being in the direct path of a fan. The artificial tears help me to a limited extent. The uncomfortable sensation and dull ache in the eyelids still present themselves. You mentioned checking tear film in the mirror. It's possible to do that? How?

With regards to the 6 month monitoring period, this is my opinion. For monitoring the progression of my glaucoma condition, i think it is sufficient. For the dry eye, i am not too sure if it may be too long. However it would probably be a bit costly for me i had to go back more often. However, if the dry eye discomfort gets worse or doesn't improve much after i finish using the Zaditen eye drops in about a month's time, then i would seriously consider going back to the doc to get my eyes checked out.

[littlemermaid]

She looks in x10 cosmetic mirror. Normal eye looks shiny and wet... dry eye not so much tear on surface; really bad dry eye is orange peel look to sclera - this is a stressed eye for us and we're in trouble. Helps to have a really close look at the 'normal' eye of a very good friend! You could use the test strips or thread if you're into this (TBUT, Schirmer, whatsits).

Hope you're feeling better - best wishes from London

[rooneyandfergie]

Thanks littlemermaid. Have learnt quite a lot from you indeed !