Stopped all drops and ointments

[Stacey]

I have suffered with light sensitivity, burning, gritty/ dry eys since jan07 3 months after lasik. I finally gave in and flew to NYC to see Dr Latkany. He told me that my eyes had tears and that the symptoms are from ocular rosacea. He advised me to stop all drops, ointments, warm compresses and only do cold ones. He also recommend i identify my triggers and see an allergist. Its now been 9 days since stopping everything, although I do use tranquil eyes at night. Im still struggling and the burning and light sensivity is slightly worse. I am hoping anyone that has also been advised to stop all products can offer me some support as to what they went through and if/when it gets better. I really believe in dr Latkany and this diagnosis but I need some hope and support.

[Guest]

I think stopping everything can go well lf you're able to stay home and baby your eyes, but if you have to keep working, I think it would be tough...

If your eyes feel worse, I'd take that as a sign that maybe you still need to use preservative free artificial tears from time to time right now (albeit sparingly?)... Maybe you can book a week or two of vacation time and THEN try to cut out the drops completely (at least then you'll be home where you control how much stress you put on your eyes). Or maybe, before restarting drops, you could try splashing ice cold water on your closed lids several times a day (when I tried quitting drops last year on my maternity leave, the ice cold water helped a LOT... plus, it's easy to do anywhere that has a sink as long as you don't wear makeup) If you DO wear makeup, you could try dampening a tissue with ice cold water and putting that on your lids as often as you need to (I suppose this would mess up eye makeup, but at least you could still wear makeup on the rest of your face if you want to).

Re: ocular rosacea - I bought the book Rosacea 101 by Brady Barrows after seeing Dr. L. post about that... the guy who wrote the book lays out a rosacea diet... I tried it, it's really hard to stick to at first... but it eliminates pretty much all rosacea trigger food from your diet (it's also a VERY low carb diet). After 30 days, you can start to experiment with adding different foods back into your diet, and hopefully it will become clear which ones trigger you (if any). I'm still experimenting with this diet myself... I keep running out of the right foods and messing it up lol... but I DO feel better when I'm on this diet for a while, so maybe there's something to it?

[Stacey]

Thanks Saag, I am actually a stay at home mom right now. I do cold compresses throughout the day and that helps a bit. Did it get better for you at all, if so how long did it take?

[Guest]

I quit the drops, but then eventually started them again just so it would allow me to do more... especially once I went back to work (part time) I HAD to use drops, otherwise working would not have been an option. If I didn't watch TV, didn't use the computer, and didn't work, plus rested with my eyes closed several hours per day, I could get away with no drops and be quite comfortable... but that wasn't practical for the long term because I couldn't DO anything!

I suspect I might have some ocular rosacea going on... so I've been experimenting with various strategies to see what works the best for me. I've come to the conclusion that for me, the use of drops is a balancing act... use too much, and my eyes get more irritated... don't use enough, and they get irritated! I have to try to find a happy medium... know what i mean?

I think the rosacea diet has promise though... my eyes improved when I was on it (so did the joint pain in my knees, plus the burning I get on my face from rosacea) So I'm going to continue playing around with that diet to see if I can figure out what food triggers I may have.