Please tell me it's going to get better

[LauraK]

Sorry to vent, just having a really tough week. Please tell me it's going to get better. I am 4 months post lasik and feel like I am running out of options.

I just want to move on with my life and be happy again.

None of my family or friends understand and keep reminding me there are people out there dealing with a lot worse. I understand that, but it doesn't diminish how I feel.

[Rebecca Petris]

Sorry to vent, just having a really tough week. Please tell me it's going to get better. I am 4 months post lasik and feel like I am running out of options.

I just want to move on with my life and be happy again.

IT WILL, IT WILL, IT WILL.

4 months is a very short time after LASIK... the recovery curve when dry eye has hit the picture can extend much much further. And I hope I don't scare you by saying it might get worse before it gets better. I just don't want you in that trap of thinking "well, it's been this long already so the chances of getting better are dropping rapidly". Doesn't work that way. Even in the medical studies let alone reality... A lot of those severed nerves will be regrowing not just for months but years.

None of my family or friends understand and keep reminding me there are people out there dealing with a lot worse. I understand that, but it doesn't diminish how I feel.

Eek. I'm sorry. This is one of those things that someone has to experience to understand but I do wish that at least the will to empathize were more widespread! Maybe you can find a 'dry eye buddy' here to email or talk with?

[AprilShowers]

My advice is to read the many hundreds of posts on this forum and decide yourself. As for your family tell them if they had no tears for just 48 hours they'd know what your going through. Tell them when they have a small piece of dust in their eyes or wood sawdust it often feels like a brick or part of a tree trunk. Yet when you get it out and examine it it's nothing more than an almost invisible small speck of dust. Dry eyes is similar each patch of dryness feels like 10 sawdust specks in each eye and they constantly twinge, blink, hurt and groan. Non- sufferers do not understand. Some think dry-eyes is so common that it just can't be that important and they rate it no more important than having dandruff - how wrong they are. I think our mascot, logo or badge emblem should be Saint Samson, you must have seen the film in which the Pharisees burn his eyes and blinded him. Some days dry-eyes blinds me, it vexes me, and when my wife tells me to hurry up and get dressed to go somewhere with her, I hate to say [so don't] that I don't want to go anywhere because it makes me so fed up. Your going to have to get used to this, it may get better, I hope it does. Good luck.

[LauraK]

Thank you for responding Rebecca. I just hope they will get better over time. I have tried so many things, restasis (4 months), punctal plugs, serum drops, etc. I feel like I am running out of options.

[Rebecca Petris]

I know. There's a nasty period after LASIK (for some of us anyway) when you can try everything including the kitchen sink and nothing seems to help - but it doesn't stay that way. Time passes, healing starts kicking in, and you gradually find tools & strategies that really do help.

There's also another factor sometimes... burning too quickly through treatments. Can't emphasize enough the role time plays in all this Hang in there.

[SunshineinCalgary]

Hi Aprilshowers,

I like your example about telling people when they have wood sawdust in their eyes. True, they don't understand our pain.