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...... I wanted to share my experience with all of you because I know how $hit daily life can be when you have dry eyes, no one understands and takes you seriously ... even more annoying
Mini HISTORY Lesson:
-Wore Contact Lenses since I was 12... (noticed I had dry eye since whenever I wore them = veiny reddish @ inner corners)
-Had the ''Custom-Wave Front" Lasik Surgery done at 19 ... (turning 22)........ made eyes even MORE DRY-ER and only feeling worse as months go by= imagine feeling like you have a contact lense in your eye you slept with all night, all week perhaps, constantly having that feeling as if a MINI-FAN was blowing in your face...and there is no wind near! ... or even worse somedays... feeling as if you swam wide-eyed in a chlorine pool with your dirty contact lense and whilst having the mini-fan blow in your face.......(o yea red veiny eyes= STONED LOOK, because of the pain of your eyes u can barely keep them open normally)...........NEED I SAY MORE!!!??? uuuuuuuaghhh !!!
THINGS I TRIED BEFORE -HAND
- So I've read about warm compresses and even an optometrist told me to do so...BUT I've tried WARM and (ICE)-COLD... I've found ICE-cold feels more soothing and decreases redness way more! ( just a handful of ice+water + face towel)
-REDNESS-RELIEVER Eye drops.... *i'm telling u...DONT depend on these! I suggest u stay away from these altogether anyway they are TEMPORARY and will only make u worse and feeling more dry even more if u over-use, for relief stick to lubricant drops only!!
-LUBRICANT DROPS/ EYE DROPS
After testing a couple of staple brands... I always ended up buying GENTEAL...(liquid/gel drops)... still I was going through a bottle every 2 weeks @ $12 a bottle...8 drops a day or so
-MEDICATION
5 month run of accutane 40 mg (10 mg off and on), it is said to induce dry eye
-SUPPLEMENTS
I Know for sure that the ''NATURE'S BOUNTY'' Flaxseed Oil Capsules
http://www.drugstore.com/natures-bou...2?catid=183250
I started to take in 2011 helped me with dryness and thus a tad lessened some redness, noticeably enough..... but not completely satisfied to stop looking for solutions
ALSO I ditched the flaxseed for 2 months to try the EXPENSIVE ''PRN'' DRY EYE OMEGA Benefit pills ''Physician Recommended"........ but I saw no major difference... and think nature's bounty is better anyway
Also tried ''THERA TEARS fish oil capsules''.... again i would still choose nature's bounty flaxseed
PUNCTAL PLUGS + short run on FML drops:
-@ first tried TEMPORARY PUNCTAL PLUGS
didnt notice much of a difference
for the 3 months it was supposedly to last there
-*** WENT TO A DRY EYE STUDY***, where obviously I qualified the UN-BIASED DOC there noted that I indEED have very dry eyes, where he preformed tests on me...(i.e- schirmer test, where it revealed I didn't produce enough tears... NORMAL people tears get a 11-15 count..whereas I got 1-3 count)
- PERMANENT LOWER PLUGS + PRESCRIPTION STEROID (FML) Drops
found noticeable relief with lessened red veiny eyes,,I was also prescribed FML eye drops that I was using ,,, but still I wanted more moisture!
-FINALLLY (after much personal research)....GOT UPPER PERMANENT PLUGGED as well !
-so now I am quad-plugged ... initially the LASIK Surgeon and optometrist said I don't NEED uppers done.. but once I told the surgeon that it's been nearly 3 years later and just how many bottles of i-drops I use he gave in ...... There at LASIK they don't and have never BOTHERED to do any formal tests on me like (the schirmer's test, and tear break up test etc)...they just look at my cornea in there handy dandy microscope and see I have no 'dry spots'... welll isn't that just LAZY-NEGLECTful, dumb-of-them since... dry eyes can be an aqueous deficiency !
-VERDICT
I feel much better ... REDNESS Noticeably Lessened! .. although the veins haven't disappeared, it has just subsided and the pigment of what is now pinkish (not red) has gone done alot! i know for sure because before if I spent just 30 minutes on the computer my eyes would get soo red and feel soo dry.... now as I 'tested it out' I spent a couple hours on the computer ... and my eyes stay significantly 'white'... and don't feel as dry... basically its not bothersome to use the computer now
I may never get casper white eyes like some people I know... but it is a helluva lot better looking than before.. I can now say I don't look like I just smoked a toke.
- I still take flaxseed capsules, as I think it will help and has been helping me even more (produce 'good quality tears')
- I'm veering off the FML steroid eye drops... and i'm still good
- EYE DROPS ARE SOOO MUCH Less needed now... I find that I use them mainly to ''wash out'' my eyes... I might need 2 drops a day now... and I could still manage with none
- i'm glad I got them...
-CAVEATS:
Even though they are 'permanent' they can still pop out... so I would get an optometrist to check if theyre still in...
-At first you can experience over-tearing or 'epiphora' but for me that went away the first week, but it can still randomly come...
-You get more EYE boogers more (just look in the mirror more and wipe them off with a q-tip)
**THE ACTUAL PROCEDURE**
for the lower perm. plugs...it was a more less invasive feeling procedure... I was in a chair sitting and I felt fine when it was all done in a matter of a minute or so
for the uppers... i lied down on the same surgical bed as the lasik surgery, unbenounced to me...
and more invasive feeling....had alot of eye pressure during the procedure (5-8 minutes for me), like the doc was pushing down on my eyeballs, that was the feeling
and alot of annoyance after....
For the first few days after the procedure it was bad... and i was questioning if I made the right choice... because my eyes (inner corner) weere REAAAALLLY RED like opaque red and veiny... my eyes still had that pressured feeling and overall Uncomfortable-ness!
that all went away in a week and all of that post-redness fully gone within 2 weeks...redness went down by the 1st week though
Hope that helped!
and I hope you can find relief...
the uppers were a last resort (on a medical/clinical/surgical level and personal level) and i'm glad i got it done.
** Side-note: Lasik made my eyes light-sensitive.... punctal plugs had no effect in that unfortunately
crap this is long!
sorry i wanted to keep it short
Mini HISTORY Lesson:
-Wore Contact Lenses since I was 12... (noticed I had dry eye since whenever I wore them = veiny reddish @ inner corners)
-Had the ''Custom-Wave Front" Lasik Surgery done at 19 ... (turning 22)........ made eyes even MORE DRY-ER and only feeling worse as months go by= imagine feeling like you have a contact lense in your eye you slept with all night, all week perhaps, constantly having that feeling as if a MINI-FAN was blowing in your face...and there is no wind near! ... or even worse somedays... feeling as if you swam wide-eyed in a chlorine pool with your dirty contact lense and whilst having the mini-fan blow in your face.......(o yea red veiny eyes= STONED LOOK, because of the pain of your eyes u can barely keep them open normally)...........NEED I SAY MORE!!!??? uuuuuuuaghhh !!!
THINGS I TRIED BEFORE -HAND
- So I've read about warm compresses and even an optometrist told me to do so...BUT I've tried WARM and (ICE)-COLD... I've found ICE-cold feels more soothing and decreases redness way more! ( just a handful of ice+water + face towel)
-REDNESS-RELIEVER Eye drops.... *i'm telling u...DONT depend on these! I suggest u stay away from these altogether anyway they are TEMPORARY and will only make u worse and feeling more dry even more if u over-use, for relief stick to lubricant drops only!!
-LUBRICANT DROPS/ EYE DROPS
After testing a couple of staple brands... I always ended up buying GENTEAL...(liquid/gel drops)... still I was going through a bottle every 2 weeks @ $12 a bottle...8 drops a day or so
-MEDICATION
5 month run of accutane 40 mg (10 mg off and on), it is said to induce dry eye
-SUPPLEMENTS
I Know for sure that the ''NATURE'S BOUNTY'' Flaxseed Oil Capsules
http://www.drugstore.com/natures-bou...2?catid=183250
I started to take in 2011 helped me with dryness and thus a tad lessened some redness, noticeably enough..... but not completely satisfied to stop looking for solutions
ALSO I ditched the flaxseed for 2 months to try the EXPENSIVE ''PRN'' DRY EYE OMEGA Benefit pills ''Physician Recommended"........ but I saw no major difference... and think nature's bounty is better anyway
Also tried ''THERA TEARS fish oil capsules''.... again i would still choose nature's bounty flaxseed
PUNCTAL PLUGS + short run on FML drops:
-@ first tried TEMPORARY PUNCTAL PLUGS
didnt notice much of a difference
for the 3 months it was supposedly to last there
-*** WENT TO A DRY EYE STUDY***, where obviously I qualified the UN-BIASED DOC there noted that I indEED have very dry eyes, where he preformed tests on me...(i.e- schirmer test, where it revealed I didn't produce enough tears... NORMAL people tears get a 11-15 count..whereas I got 1-3 count)
- PERMANENT LOWER PLUGS + PRESCRIPTION STEROID (FML) Drops
found noticeable relief with lessened red veiny eyes,,I was also prescribed FML eye drops that I was using ,,, but still I wanted more moisture!
-FINALLLY (after much personal research)....GOT UPPER PERMANENT PLUGGED as well !
-so now I am quad-plugged ... initially the LASIK Surgeon and optometrist said I don't NEED uppers done.. but once I told the surgeon that it's been nearly 3 years later and just how many bottles of i-drops I use he gave in ...... There at LASIK they don't and have never BOTHERED to do any formal tests on me like (the schirmer's test, and tear break up test etc)...they just look at my cornea in there handy dandy microscope and see I have no 'dry spots'... welll isn't that just LAZY-NEGLECTful, dumb-of-them since... dry eyes can be an aqueous deficiency !
-VERDICT
I feel much better ... REDNESS Noticeably Lessened! .. although the veins haven't disappeared, it has just subsided and the pigment of what is now pinkish (not red) has gone done alot! i know for sure because before if I spent just 30 minutes on the computer my eyes would get soo red and feel soo dry.... now as I 'tested it out' I spent a couple hours on the computer ... and my eyes stay significantly 'white'... and don't feel as dry... basically its not bothersome to use the computer now
I may never get casper white eyes like some people I know... but it is a helluva lot better looking than before.. I can now say I don't look like I just smoked a toke.
- I still take flaxseed capsules, as I think it will help and has been helping me even more (produce 'good quality tears')
- I'm veering off the FML steroid eye drops... and i'm still good
- EYE DROPS ARE SOOO MUCH Less needed now... I find that I use them mainly to ''wash out'' my eyes... I might need 2 drops a day now... and I could still manage with none
- i'm glad I got them...
-CAVEATS:
Even though they are 'permanent' they can still pop out... so I would get an optometrist to check if theyre still in...
-At first you can experience over-tearing or 'epiphora' but for me that went away the first week, but it can still randomly come...
-You get more EYE boogers more (just look in the mirror more and wipe them off with a q-tip)
**THE ACTUAL PROCEDURE**
for the lower perm. plugs...it was a more less invasive feeling procedure... I was in a chair sitting and I felt fine when it was all done in a matter of a minute or so
for the uppers... i lied down on the same surgical bed as the lasik surgery, unbenounced to me...
and more invasive feeling....had alot of eye pressure during the procedure (5-8 minutes for me), like the doc was pushing down on my eyeballs, that was the feeling
and alot of annoyance after....
For the first few days after the procedure it was bad... and i was questioning if I made the right choice... because my eyes (inner corner) weere REAAAALLLY RED like opaque red and veiny... my eyes still had that pressured feeling and overall Uncomfortable-ness!
that all went away in a week and all of that post-redness fully gone within 2 weeks...redness went down by the 1st week though
Hope that helped!
and I hope you can find relief...
the uppers were a last resort (on a medical/clinical/surgical level and personal level) and i'm glad i got it done.
** Side-note: Lasik made my eyes light-sensitive.... punctal plugs had no effect in that unfortunately
crap this is long!
sorry i wanted to keep it short
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