Dry Eye Syndrome, only 22. Constant Redness, with or without contacts. Please Help.

[vivian3090]

I've been battling red eyes whenever I wear contacts or not for the past couple years.
At first I thought it was just because I wore Hard Contact lenses, So I thought getting into Soft Lenses would help. My optometrist put me in biofinity toric (because of my astigmatism) and these didn't help with redness.
Throughout this time I used redness reliever drops to take the redness away, but they were only temporary fixes. And reading articles and everything, apparently it makes everything worse.

I've seen a couple of optometrist/opthamologist this past week, becauses I felt that it was time to get the help, because this isnt normal.
My optotemtrist put me on lotemax, and although I feel it helped a bit, all she said was i had severely dry eyes. 4x a day i was to put lotemax in. I noticed that only one eye seemed to get better while the other eye stayed a bit redder.

I then saw an opthamologist who did a tear test and said my left eye is very low in tear production and my right is borderline.
He said lotemax isn't going to work since its more of an anti-inflamitorry. He gave me systane balance and blink tears for dry eyes to use.
He said I could wear my contacts with them. I wore contacts last night and my eyes were bloodshot throughout and blink tears may have relieved my dryness, it didnt relieve the redness.
He told me to let him know how things are going in a week, but I feel I already know what I have to tell him "that it's not working"

I just don't know what to do, and I am afraid that I will be dealing with constant red eyes for my entire life. My self confidence is shot, and I don't know what to do.
Do i just need to give it time and let the drops work? or am I doomed to red eyes for life and not being able to wear contacts ever again?

[tearless2]

Hi,

I took a break from contacts while I got my dry eye more functional and not in constant horrific pain. If you keep wearing contacts with an inflamed eye, it may make your eye worse. I now wear contacts occassionally although not as frequently as I did before.

Did your doctors say you had MGD or aqueous deficiency? It sounds like the opthamologist is saying aqueous deficiency when he said you had low tear production. Did they mention how your meibomian glands were functioning?

I think you need to consider where your red eyes and dry eyes are coming from.

1) You might be allergic to something so you might want to see an allergist.

2)Did your eye doctors think it could be related to contact lens wear? Did they mention GPC (giant pappilary conjunctivits) bumps under the yelids from prolonged contact use
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1191641-overview

3) Talk to your GP and consider thyroid or autoimmune blood.

Many people don't have a source for their dry eyes but some do and sometimes knowing the source can assist with treatment.

Don't use any more redness relievers like visine. Find some cute glasses you like yourself in - take a friend shopping for an honest opinion.

Give yourself time to heal. It will take patience but I think you can do it.

[MaryVa61]

Two additions to the above suggestions (which were great):

Take a friend glasses shopping who actually wears glasses and has a similar style and is reasonably close to your age. I've made the mistake of taking someone much younger who doesn't wear glasses. The results were pretty bad.

If you pursue allergy testing, check online or call around to find an allergist who does patch tests for type IV hypersensitivities (which can affect eyes more than skin sometimes) rather than just handling type I hypersensitivities/allergies. If none are available who do both, I'd see the allergist but if they don't find any allergies, I'd then see a dermatologist for the type IV skin allergy tests.

[vivian3090]

No he didn't mention anything about any glands. nor do I think he checked. He only did the tear test. and my diagnosis was 375.15
http://www.icd9data.com/2012/Volume1...375/375.15.htm ---which I am guessing is the dry eye syndrome diagnosis code.

I'm really wondering as to what is making my eyes so red, I don't think it ever used to a few years back, they all the sudden started around my senior year of highschool but didnt get bad till maybe a year later, and I was dumb enough not to do anything till now.

I can try an allergist and see what they say.

and he checked under my eyelids friday, but he didn't mention anything. and I have no clue that if its because of contact lenses. but he said to call him in a week to let him know how my progress is going, I may go ahead and make an appointment to see him and discuss these options because my eyes are still red and irritated and I haven't been wearing contacts for the past few days.

When i wore my contacts the other day, they didn't feel dry or anything, they just became bloodshot.

I'm just dissappointed I may have to wear glasses for the rest of my life with maybe no possibility of contacts. I would hate to wear glasses on big days like weddings, or outtings with friends, etc. I don't want to have those memories and jsut see pictures of me in glasses.

[tearless2]

One other thought is to check to see if you have ocular rosacea. I don't know who diagnoses this -- a dermatologist or eye doctor but it is probably something to mention to your eye doctor. You can search this website for ideas on rosacea.

[Lacrima]

Hi Vivian,

Have you looked into silicone hydrogel contact lenses? They come in daily disposable or more longterm wear. I'm reading up a bit on contacts because I hope to start wearing them again, too (having a few months' break atm). I read that if you have dry eyes and wear soft lenses with a high water content, the contact lens will draw too much of your eye's moisture to stay hydrated. It is therefore better for dry eye patients to wear contacts with lower water content but that are very breathable. Silicone hydrogel lenses are good for this as far as I know.

[Pearl25]

Hi vivian 3090 the same thing happened to me..it took me two months of no contacts no make up to get rid of the veins. When I wear my contacts after a while they will start to appear again but they are not as red as before. I wanted to ask you how your eyes react when you put make up on, especially eyeliner on the waterline.

[vivian3090]

Ever since this started I actually haven't put any makeup on. So I wouldn't know now it reacts. I have found some relief with plugs. Bit today was a bad day, pollen count was high and my eyes were red and veiny

[MaryVa61]

It's funny that I sneezed my head off this past weekend (tree pollen), and missed work on Monday, because of that and the constant nose-blowing, yet my eyes didn't bother me. So my eye allergy problem appears to just be due to my skin/type-IV allergies to certain chemicals.

Mary