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How my punctum cautery went--a brief journal w/pics
Hi everyone 
As willwork4tears' post on having her punctum ducts cauterized helped me, I thought adding a brief bit about my experience might help another here.
Part 1: First, the basics/history--
The Symptoms: I'm living with 8+ autoimmune diseases incl. (all moderate-severe) RA, extremely light-sensitive Lupus, Degenerative Disc Disease, Sjogren's--in short, my bones, joints, organs, soft tissues, everything is under attack/being destroyed because my body acts as if all parts of my body are foreign, dangerous and a threat to my life. At least in my experience, the autoimmune diseases act like lady-finger fireworks: when one is (aggravated) fired off, all the others rapidly follow in succession.
The Treatments: Eye-wise, I started having *tremendous,* vomit-inducing headaches from all forms of light a little less than a year ago. Sjogren's was discovered, but my pcp did nothing until Lupus was brought into the picture last Spring. Since then I now have a retina specialist (there's damage developing in my left eye) and a cornea specialist (actually, this is my 2nd, much better, cornea specialist.) As well as photosensitivity and very bad pain to both eyes in general, I'd begun rubbing them in my sleep resulting in inverted lids and fishing out 5-8 eyelashes from my eyes each morning (oddly, my eyelashes are falling out at a high rate anyway.) I think I've had about every test given for dry eyes, incl. the Fluorescien staining and the Schirmer's test, which I don't really register on (I'm between a 1-3 mm.)
The first (the bad) cornea specialist put me on Restasis and Genteal, neither worked and the dr. wouldn't address the crippling pain, to boot. This Fall I got a kind, compassionate, gentle, very knowledgable, pretty well ego-free cornea specialist.) The *good* cornea specialist recognized the severity, and along w/ discontinuing Restasis, he had me switch from Genteal to a truly preservative-free eye drop (Genteal only works if you have enough tears to neutralize the preservative, something I'm lacking.) Then he suggested Boston Lenses--which I can in no way afford--so he recommended either punctum plugs or cautery (given my body's self-attacking tendencies, he believed cauterizing would be safer as no foreign bodies would be involved.) In addition, he suggested that I get m.e.g.s as well (I've contacted the SeeFit company over 6 times--half by email, half by phone--but have had no reply--even when I explained I'd be wanting a couple/a few sets of eye cups to switch out [they have an answering maching message, but no one answers. Even an optitian has tried.] I'm severely allergic to latex--which maybe these have?--so if *anybody* can think of a way to do silicone m.e.g.s. *please* write me.)
The Decision: Long story short---I agreed on cauterizing 2 punctum and keeping up the search for m.e.g.s.
Yesterday morning I had my 2 inner punctum (the tear ducts that drain away tears) heat-cauterized.
(more to come, hopefully tonight...)
As willwork4tears' post on having her punctum ducts cauterized helped me, I thought adding a brief bit about my experience might help another here.
Part 1: First, the basics/history--
The Symptoms: I'm living with 8+ autoimmune diseases incl. (all moderate-severe) RA, extremely light-sensitive Lupus, Degenerative Disc Disease, Sjogren's--in short, my bones, joints, organs, soft tissues, everything is under attack/being destroyed because my body acts as if all parts of my body are foreign, dangerous and a threat to my life. At least in my experience, the autoimmune diseases act like lady-finger fireworks: when one is (aggravated) fired off, all the others rapidly follow in succession.
The Treatments: Eye-wise, I started having *tremendous,* vomit-inducing headaches from all forms of light a little less than a year ago. Sjogren's was discovered, but my pcp did nothing until Lupus was brought into the picture last Spring. Since then I now have a retina specialist (there's damage developing in my left eye) and a cornea specialist (actually, this is my 2nd, much better, cornea specialist.) As well as photosensitivity and very bad pain to both eyes in general, I'd begun rubbing them in my sleep resulting in inverted lids and fishing out 5-8 eyelashes from my eyes each morning (oddly, my eyelashes are falling out at a high rate anyway.) I think I've had about every test given for dry eyes, incl. the Fluorescien staining and the Schirmer's test, which I don't really register on (I'm between a 1-3 mm.)
The first (the bad) cornea specialist put me on Restasis and Genteal, neither worked and the dr. wouldn't address the crippling pain, to boot. This Fall I got a kind, compassionate, gentle, very knowledgable, pretty well ego-free cornea specialist.) The *good* cornea specialist recognized the severity, and along w/ discontinuing Restasis, he had me switch from Genteal to a truly preservative-free eye drop (Genteal only works if you have enough tears to neutralize the preservative, something I'm lacking.) Then he suggested Boston Lenses--which I can in no way afford--so he recommended either punctum plugs or cautery (given my body's self-attacking tendencies, he believed cauterizing would be safer as no foreign bodies would be involved.) In addition, he suggested that I get m.e.g.s as well (I've contacted the SeeFit company over 6 times--half by email, half by phone--but have had no reply--even when I explained I'd be wanting a couple/a few sets of eye cups to switch out [they have an answering maching message, but no one answers. Even an optitian has tried.] I'm severely allergic to latex--which maybe these have?--so if *anybody* can think of a way to do silicone m.e.g.s. *please* write me.)
The Decision: Long story short---I agreed on cauterizing 2 punctum and keeping up the search for m.e.g.s.
Yesterday morning I had my 2 inner punctum (the tear ducts that drain away tears) heat-cauterized.
(more to come, hopefully tonight...)
I hope you feel some relief from the cautery and I'm very happy to hear you finally found a great cornea specialist to work with.
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