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Caution, about honey and other stuff
I want to issue a word of caution here.
1) About honey.
I have received private reports of people having adverse reactions to using honey which required medical treatment afterwards.
Please people, don't go dumping non sterile substances, or any substances, in your eye just because someone else here said they did and says they're feeling better! You really can't have any idea what will happen and you may be placing yourself at risk. Consult your doctor, study, use common sense. Don't let the dry eye flareup panic control your decision-making.
2) About copying others successes in general.
I know people always get really excited when they see any success story, especially when it seems to be a simple, accessible remedy. But we also need to use our sense both about evaluating others' successes and about attempting to replicate them.
With any "success" that looks interesting, you should be looking for information such as:
a) What specific disease(s) and symptoms the user has. For all you know their condition and history might be so different from yours that their healing response is irrelevant to you.
b) How long the remedy was used. We all know dry eye has ups and downs. Sometimes they're short and sometimes they're long. How many false starts have people had here where they thought they were "better"? When somebody's been using something only for a short time, no matter how much better they are feeling, the results need to be sustained through the normal ups and downs of dry eye and different environmental and seasonal factors before they can really say with any confidence that they're better - let alone what made them better. I'm not saying don't post till you've been doing it for a year. I'm saying that when you post about your latest, make sure you say how long it's been (actually I think almost everyone already does this, which is great), and when you're reading what others are posting, make sure you look for this information.
c) Whether any other factors changed while it was being used.
There are SO many variables in everyone's dry eye equation (disease type(s) first and foremost, then environmental, activities, systemic drug interactions, seasonal, hormonal, depression/anxiety factors, etc) that even with exclusive use of one remedy for a significant period it's hard for anyone to say with certainty whether a remedy has really helped. And when you add to that the fact that the majority of people here are using a ton of stuff (if you add it all together... Omega 3s, goggles, compresses, drops, goop, plugs, Restasis, doxy, Azasite, Lotemax, you name it) - then whether you add one for awhile, or stop three and add two, it's just kind of ocular surface chaos out there - the outcome may be important for you personally but it's not always informative for others.
I have been here quite a long time
and I have rarely come across people who were disciplined and determined enough to try remedies one at a time for a significant trial period. I'm not saying that as a criticism - most people really can't drop everything to use a specific treatment or just a few things and I understand that - but it's a fact that needs to be borne in mind. I know we can't wait for double blind randomized trials of everything that comes along, but we shouldn't go to the other extreme either. Hope springs eternal, which is great, but let's make sure there's some good sense and caution in that geyser too.
Bottom line:
Read carefully.
Post thoughtfully.
Choose treatments wisely, using sense and professional input as appropriate.
[lecture over]
1) About honey.
I have received private reports of people having adverse reactions to using honey which required medical treatment afterwards.
Please people, don't go dumping non sterile substances, or any substances, in your eye just because someone else here said they did and says they're feeling better! You really can't have any idea what will happen and you may be placing yourself at risk. Consult your doctor, study, use common sense. Don't let the dry eye flareup panic control your decision-making.
2) About copying others successes in general.
I know people always get really excited when they see any success story, especially when it seems to be a simple, accessible remedy. But we also need to use our sense both about evaluating others' successes and about attempting to replicate them.
With any "success" that looks interesting, you should be looking for information such as:
a) What specific disease(s) and symptoms the user has. For all you know their condition and history might be so different from yours that their healing response is irrelevant to you.
b) How long the remedy was used. We all know dry eye has ups and downs. Sometimes they're short and sometimes they're long. How many false starts have people had here where they thought they were "better"? When somebody's been using something only for a short time, no matter how much better they are feeling, the results need to be sustained through the normal ups and downs of dry eye and different environmental and seasonal factors before they can really say with any confidence that they're better - let alone what made them better. I'm not saying don't post till you've been doing it for a year. I'm saying that when you post about your latest, make sure you say how long it's been (actually I think almost everyone already does this, which is great), and when you're reading what others are posting, make sure you look for this information.
c) Whether any other factors changed while it was being used.
There are SO many variables in everyone's dry eye equation (disease type(s) first and foremost, then environmental, activities, systemic drug interactions, seasonal, hormonal, depression/anxiety factors, etc) that even with exclusive use of one remedy for a significant period it's hard for anyone to say with certainty whether a remedy has really helped. And when you add to that the fact that the majority of people here are using a ton of stuff (if you add it all together... Omega 3s, goggles, compresses, drops, goop, plugs, Restasis, doxy, Azasite, Lotemax, you name it) - then whether you add one for awhile, or stop three and add two, it's just kind of ocular surface chaos out there - the outcome may be important for you personally but it's not always informative for others.
I have been here quite a long time
and I have rarely come across people who were disciplined and determined enough to try remedies one at a time for a significant trial period. I'm not saying that as a criticism - most people really can't drop everything to use a specific treatment or just a few things and I understand that - but it's a fact that needs to be borne in mind. I know we can't wait for double blind randomized trials of everything that comes along, but we shouldn't go to the other extreme either. Hope springs eternal, which is great, but let's make sure there's some good sense and caution in that geyser too.Bottom line:
Read carefully.
Post thoughtfully.
Choose treatments wisely, using sense and professional input as appropriate.
[lecture over
]
The specific situation that came to her attention doesn't matter in a sense, since table honey being put in the eye hasn't been well studied (if at all? haha) so we'll never know if the exact thing that happened to that other person will apply to us or not.
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