Nighttime Dry, Reflux, and Food

[Jaelyn]

Curious, how many out there have non-burning reflux? My dry eye is directly correlated to what I eat and how well controlled my reflux is. I have a weak LES valve and even though I don't over produce acid, the fluid coming into my esophagus causes spasms which in turn causes some weird symptoms, including Ocular Migraine (without headache, just flashes of light), Asthma symptoms (now cured of that when treating the reflux), and now I'm finally linking my dry eye to it. So I started to track what I ate after five. Then started to experiment with different foods and found that I could have better or worse symptoms depending on what I ate. Frosted Mini-Wheats are the enemy, causing the worst dry eye symptoms yet. Since there is only four ingredients on the box, it should make it pretty simple. In process of eliminating high furctose corn syrup and other sugars, maybe wheat from my diet. Not easy but it is helping. Caffeine, definitely a culprit. Now eliminated. Asparatame, another huge dry eye culprit, has been sneaking into my chewing gum so I thought that I eliminated it but guess not. Anyway, just wondered if anyone else found this to be true and have found the magical list of forbidden foods...

PS, also just started taking 1200 mg flaxseed 3x daily, vitamin A & D

[Lesley Ann]

I can't really comment on you relflux, but can say that since I realised after years of problems that I am gluten and diary intolerant, I have noticed that I have far less of a sinus problem which in turn seems to help my eyes.
Also I noticed several years ago that I was intolerant of Asparatame and this caused severe headaches. If you read up about it it is quite scary.
I do notice that I also get headaches when I have neglected my eyes (not putting in drops frequently enough etc).

[bvendig]

aspartame

hi all

i had read quite a while ago about a connection between aspartame and dry eye.

at the time, i was drinking about 6 - 8 cans a day of diet 7 up which i've now stopped.

in my case, my eyes were so severely dry (shirmer test 1) that i had 4 punctal plugs and that has helped me tremendously.
but, i just wanted to mention something that i noticed when i first got them put in.
on a lot of days, my eyes would be fine. they produced enough tears that with all 4 punci plugged i was trouble-free, but, every few days my eyes would be dry even with the plugs. i finally correlated it to the amount of diet drinks i was drinking. on the days that i was dry, i noticed those were days i had more diet soda. now, i limit myself to no more than 2 cans a day and i never have a day where i'm dry again.

now..i don't want to make it sound like cutting out diet 7 up cured me of dry eye. the punctal plugs have made my eyes moist enough that i'm comfortable but without those plugs i'd be right back to where i started (miserable). i just want to say that i think i notice a connection between dry eye and aspartame. if there is anyone out there who uses a LOT of it, please try cutting way back and drinking water instead to see if you see any improvement.

thanks, betty