Serum eye drops irritate my eyes

[Brent]

I am really perplexed and dismayed by the fact that serum eye drops not only don't work for me, they make my eyes worse. I first tried them several years ago. I had extremely high hopes that they were what I was looking for after all I read about them, however, that hope soon turned into big disappointment when I tried using them and the outer parts of my eyes started burning. I tried to stick with it for awhile but eventually had no choice but to give up on them. It was honestly a huge relief not to be dealing with them anymore. However, more recently the dry eyes have worsened and I have started having a lot of trouble keeping up at work (I write software for a living, and am only 34). Earlier this year I tried Scleral Lenses, but I did not have much luck with those either. However, in trying those I found that my eyes could not tolerate the saline at all. Given that, I asked my doctor about trying 100% serum eye drops instead of the saline diluted drops, and he agreed. I again had high hopes, but I could tell immediately after putting them in the first time that it had the same problem. Sometimes they feel tolerable enough that I want to try to keep using them to see if I adjust, but after several days using it 4x daily, I have started getting mega eyestrain from it that keeps me from doing almost anything. It is beyond frustrating and distressing seeing that so many people find them to be so great for them, yet they just make my eyes worse. Has anybody heard of anything like this because I cannot find anything like it?

Now, I have visited Dr. Pflugfelder in Houston (but it is a 3+ hr drive for me to go there). He wanted me to try platelet rich plasma drops, and I am scheduled to go get them toward the end of June. But I am very discouraged and am less hopeful about those. If the serum drops simply didn't help or not very much, I might be a little more optimistic about the PRP drops. But if serum drops actively irritate my eyes, why would the PRP (which from what I know, just has some extra healing properties) not do the same?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[L8rgator]

Wow I haven't heard of people with eyes that get irritated from saline and serum drops. I'm so sorry for you! Are there any drops you can use that don't irritate your eyes?

[Brent]

Hi, thanks for the response. Most drops do irritate my eyes. I've tried pretty much every OTC drop there is, but Theratears is really the only thing I've found that isn't overtly bad using them over the course of several days. I did try using it in my scleral lenses, though, and they burned a lot. Restasis definitely causes a lot of irritation, but I try to use them anyways to keep my eyes producing as much tears as they can.

My Ophthalmologists do their checks and usually say my eyes objectively look really good. Dr. Pflugfelder says he thinks the nerves in my eyes are hypersensitive and recommended the PRP drops to try to get the nerves to heal and calm down. I also have small fiber neuropathy that one doctor thought could be what is making them burn. However, I don't understand why in either of these cases that would make them react to something like serum drops. I guess all I can do at this point is wait and try the PRP drops and see what happens (I am supposed to go in to have them made June 21st). But I am reaching my breaking point.