Just another DES victim...

[MetallicA]

I'm a 24 years old male who lives in the middle east (I'm Persian), I've been having this very annoying dry eyes issue for around a year now and it has totally affected my life, being forced to use the AC most of the time around here to survive the heat sure isn't helping.

My eye symptoms so far:

• Burning sensation, specially when using the PC or watching TV.
• Foreign body sensation, this is probably the most annoying symptom, it feels like I literally have dust in my eyes that I simply can't remove.
• Blood shot veiny eyes, one specific vein on my right eye is pretty long and large.
• I get tiny white bump/pimple kind of things in the inner part of my eye lids, they tend to come and go away on their own every once in a while, I'm not exactly sure if those are called "styes".
• I can see visible red veins near my meibomian glands.
• I've got a bunch of floaters on each eye, specially on my right eye, I used to have one in each eye before, but the new ones disturb my view specially when reading stuff on the PC with white backgrounds, they sort of come in the way when I'm moving my eyes around, I don't have any flashing symptoms though.

What I've done to get some relief:

• I've visited around 4 eye doctors (ophthalmologists) in the past year, I got my retina checked a couple of times and was told that it's 100% fine without any signs of scarring or anything like that so the floaters are most probably benign.
  
  As for the dry eye symptoms, they were completely useless in that regard, all they had to say is that my eyes are completely 100% normal and there's nothing wrong with me (they did some normal vision tests, eye pressure and slit lamp test), at most they gave me a couple of eye drops/gels! Funny thing is that not even a single doctor inspected my eye lids, I mean I'm not a doctor, but that just shows what kind of a low service I'm getting here.
  
• Drops that I've tried so far are, artificial eye drops and gels:
  *Refresh Plus (preservative free)
  *Blink intensive tears
  *Tears Naturale Free (preservative free)
  *GenTeal Gel
  
  One of the doctors also prescribed me some Efemoline drops to cure possible non-infectious conjunctivitis, that thing felt like adding dust into my eyes.
  
  All of those were pretty much useless, the artificial eye drops barely gave me a 2 minutes relief.
  
• I've been using warm compresses around twice a day and do a lid scrub once a day, those do get me some kind of relief (I'd say around 15 minutes) and after a while my eyes felt a Bit better, but the problem is still very much there.
  
• When I'm outside and need some relief, best thing I can do is wash my eyes with very warm water, it does make 'em feel a bit better and less "dusty".

After doing some research over the net, I feel like I most probably have MGD (Meibomian Gland Dysfunction), those white bumps and red visible veins that seem inflamed near the glands are the main reasons why I think that. I also have some feeling that I Might have rheumatoid arthritis (I get morning stiffness and pain in my right hand that goes away in 15-25 minutes), but it's very hard to find a good doctor around here to diagnose/confirm that and I'm still in the search for one. I don't have dry mouth at all so I don't think I have Sjögrens Syndrome.

My main hobbies (like many others around the world) is surfing the internet and specially playing video games competitively, I've been video gaming since I was 5 years old and the stupid dry eyes have completely destroyed that for me, it only takes 10-15 minutes into a video game before I feel the DES symptoms, it totally takes out any kind of enjoyment which is the point of playing video games in the first place..

Overall I'm pretty healthy with good understanding of nutrition and exercise, but this issue has depressed me pretty badly lately and I feel like my general health has taken a dive with it. My plan is to keep on doing the hot compresses and I'll be looking more into following a strict anti inflammation diet with lots of Omega 3s and low Omega 6 intake in the next couple of months and see how that goes. I've also been reading up about MGP (Meibomian Gland Probing) but been hearing lots of mixed views about it and it doesn't seem to be "tested" enough. I tend to stay away from antiboitics, but I'm researching on whether using something like doxycycline will help me out if nothing else worked for me. Not using any eye drops at the moment because nothing worked for more than a couple of minutes for me.

I really don't care much about my eyes looking "red" or "veiny", I just want to feel good, I'm willing to even use a drop once every hour or 2 if it'll actually give me the pleasure of feeling "Normal" during that time, but none of those seem to work for me.

Sorry for the very long post, I just had to let this out of my system, any suggestions(eyes drops..etc)/info/tips would be much appreciated.

[DCRdryeye]

Hi metallica, sorry that you have to be here and have DES at your age. Have you tried the moisture chamber glasses?

[Rebecca Petris]

Hi there and welcome!

Tough to have to deal with air conditioning when you have any kind of dry eye.

I've visited around 4 eye doctors (ophthalmologists) in the past year, I got my retina checked a couple of times and was told that it's 100% fine without any signs of scarring or anything like that so the floaters are most probably benign.

Were any of them corneal specialists? If possible find a corneal specialist and bear in mind you may have to coach them through the exam - to check for what you yourself suspect (and yes it sounds likely), they need to examine your meibomian glands, press on them and see what the secretions are like.

• I've been using warm compresses around twice a day and do a lid scrub once a day, those do get me some kind of relief (I'd say around 15 minutes) and after a while my eyes felt a Bit better, but the problem is still very much there.
  
• When I'm outside and need some relief, best thing I can do is wash my eyes with very warm water, it does make 'em feel a bit better and less "dusty".

The heat probably makes sense. I wouldn't wash with WATER though. Get some unpreserved saline if you possibly can. Not sure what it would be called there. There's a product in the UK called Steripods, and a product in the US called Unisol 4.

My main hobbies (like many others around the world) is surfing the internet and specially playing video games competitively...it only takes 10-15 minutes into a video game before I feel the DES symptoms

I agree with DCRDryEye - moisture chambers are probably going to be your new best friend. Even if you don't fancy the full-fledged thing (the ones with the deep eyecup to give a total shield from air conditioning) you might go for some gaming glasses that could improve the humidity a little, like Gunnar Optiks Halogen.

[littlemermaid]

MetallicA, We are using what an ophthalmologist or pharmacist or any doctor would call 'normal saline' - unpreserved sodium choloride 0.9% - individual vials as Minims from Bausch & Lomb http://www.medicines.org.uk/EMC/medi...Minims+Saline/. You could check what your local hospital eye clinic uses as normal saline or what they use in A&E to flush eyes, because these would be single use vials, and order through a pharmacist.

[Joseph]

I am glad that you found the this forum. Knowing that you are not along and there are people who want to help is a great start to finding answers to your condition.. Hang in there and don't be afraid to ask questions. We are here to try are best to help...

[robster]

I'm a big video gamer as well and seconding what others are saying moisture chamber goggles will definitely help. When my eyes were at their worst I couldn't play video games for about 4 months and it really angered me! Using moisture chamber goggles, eye drops and a humidifier I was able to play video games again.

Now I'm at the point where I don't even need anything to play video games apart from my controller! If you do use eye drops make sure they are preservative free if possible, also don't go overboard with the eye drops like I did as you can become too reliant on them. I was addicted to eye drops if such a thing is possible and would use them up to 3 or 4 times an hour more so if I was gaming!

[MetallicA]

Thank you all for the help and kind words!

Were any of them corneal specialists? If possible find a corneal specialist and bear in mind you may have to coach them through the exam - to check for what you yourself suspect (and yes it sounds likely), they need to examine your meibomian glands, press on them and see what the secretions are like.

IIRC none were corneal specialists, one of them was a Retina specialist who told me my floaters are benign, the rest were LASIK specialists and general eye doctors.

I'll try to find a corneal specialist and do as you suggested, that will be difficult since Bahrain is a tiny country and there aren't many options here, I'll try my best to travel to a different country if I couldn't find help over here.

I wouldn't wash with WATER though. Get some unpreserved saline if you possibly can. Not sure what it would be called there. There's a product in the UK called Steripods, and a product in the US called Unisol 4.

I meant that I wash my eyelids and the area surrounding it while closing my eyes with warm water, is that bad too?

Are those saline vials just used to wash and clean your eyes or do they help in lubricating the surface and moisten it? Any harm in using those on regular basis? I'm assuming not since that's pretty much what keeps our eyes wet (water with some sodium in it along with the oils).

As for moisture chambers and glasses, I honestly haven't heard of moisture chambers before so I guess have some more researching to do, but those Gunnar glasses look very interesting to me, they seem like they'll be a very good option for using the PC and general surfing, but I'm not sure if the yellow tint will mess up the colors for watching TVs and playing games, gotta try one out to judge. It's still great option though, I already e-mailed the company about the glasses and really considering getting one.

As for moisture chambers, any specific brands/models I should be looking at that have been proved to work well with DES?

One more thing that I've forgot to mention, my left eye is slightly weaker than my right eye, my vision is slightly blurry with it and I feel like my right eye kinda zooms into the image specially at close by stuff like the PC monitor compared to my left eye. I was told by the doctors after several eye exams that both of my eyes are 20/20 and my right eye is stronger than normal vision so that's why they feel different to me, I asked if I needed glasses and they told me that I didn't need one.

Could that also be a factor to my DES or it's not related at all? Should I consider glasses to even out my vision? Individually they're both strong enough for both close and far objects.


Thanks again for the help guys, so glad I found these forums =)

[Rebecca Petris]

I meant that I wash my eyelids and the area surrounding it while closing my eyes with warm water, is that bad too?

Nope that's fine, I just misunderstood. All I meant is that flushing with plain water can cause more irritation (wrong pH).

Are those saline vials just used to wash and clean your eyes or do they help in lubricating the surface and moisten it?

Just for rinsing really though I use it sometimes as a lubricant when I can't tolerate anything else. They've really got no 'staying power' so not very effective as a lubricant.

As for moisture chambers, any specific brands/models I should be looking at that have been proved to work well with DES?

Well the options are pretty limited, but the 'staple' in the US for most of us for outdoors - and some for indoor/outdoor use - is 7Eye (SPF100 AirShield series) or Wiley-X (Climate Control series) sunglasses with the removable foam shields. See 7eye.com and wileyx.com. I've also got some cheaper though less nice options in the dry eye shop here.

Could that also be a factor to my DES or it's not related at all? Should I consider glasses to even out my vision? Individually they're both strong enough for both close and far objects.

It's an interesting point. As a person with vision problems AND dry eye, I have always found it is difficult to draw a clean line between eyestrain and dry eye pain. In addition people differ GREATLY in their tolerance for discrepancies of refraction in their two eyes - whether one eye is short or long sighted. So I can't really even guess whether glasses might help.

[littlemermaid]

I'll try to find a corneal specialist and do as you suggested, that will be difficult since Bahrain is a tiny country and there aren't many options here, I'll try my best to travel to a different country if I couldn't find help over here.

MetallicA, There's a Moorfields Eye Hospital in Dubai in the Al Razi Medical Centre (can't link it because the website's down again), if it helps to know this. Moorfields is our main UK eye hospital in London. Some UK people go to Moorfields for eg diagnosis and advice, including a treatment plan; then continue treatment locally.

The world ophthalmology congress was in Kuwait this year, so the delegate list would help you find out easily who's who in the Gulf, and track down a local specialist (like an online gaming challenge, LOL). It's true they all know each other pretty much, so if you find one sociable ophthalmologist in Bahrain s/he would probably be able to advise you on finding a cornea or surface disorder specialist.

[MetallicA]

Thanks for the replies guys,

Well the options are pretty limited, but the 'staple' in the US for most of us for outdoors - and some for indoor/outdoor use - is 7Eye (SPF100 AirShield series) or Wiley-X (Climate Control series) sunglasses with the removable foam shields. See 7eye.com and wileyx.com. I've also got some cheaper though less nice options in the dry eye shop here.

Those seem a bit extreme and they look uncomfortable, of course can't judge before trying 'em out so it's a definitely an option I'll consider after reading up enough reviews about 'em. I'll most probably give the Gunnar glasses a shot first before trying those out, I saw a few video reviews and they seem great, I just hope the yellow tint won't bother me much.
Bahrain's IP address is banned in your shop though, I think it might be because the ISP puts us behind a proxy IP address so a lot of people will show as having the same IP address and that would cause issues. I can visit it later using a VPN connection.

MetallicA, There's a Moorfields Eye Hospital in Dubai in the Al Razi Medical Centre (can't link it because the website's down again), if it helps to know this. Moorfields is our main UK eye hospital in London. Some UK people go to Moorfields for eg diagnosis and advice, including a treatment plan; then continue treatment locally.

The world ophthalmology congress was in Kuwait this year, so the delegate list would help you find out easily who's who in the Gulf, and track down a local specialist (like an online gaming challenge, LOL). It's true they all know each other pretty much, so if you find one sociable ophthalmologist in Bahrain s/he would probably be able to advise you on finding a cornea or surface disorder specialist.

That was very helpful, thanks a lot. Visiting UAE will be a lot easier and less expensive than going all the way to Europe, it would help me a LOT if the UAE branch has some good eye doctors in comparison to the ones in UK. I'll try and look for that list, I might also post a different thread in the "Find a doctor for" forum asking about good eye doctors in the middle east, specially the gulf region.

[littlemermaid]

Oops, World Ophthalmology Congress 2012 was in Abu Dhabi, UAE (not Kuwait).

[Gina Patla]

Have you ever heard of LipiFlow?

It is the first treatment I have heard of for Meibomian Gland Dysfunction. It may be worth looking into.

I'm a 24 years old male who lives in the middle east (I'm Persian), I've been having this very annoying dry eyes issue for around a year now and it has totally affected my life, being forced to use the AC most of the time around here to survive the heat sure isn't helping.

My eye symptoms so far:

• Burning sensation, specially when using the PC or watching TV.
• Foreign body sensation, this is probably the most annoying symptom, it feels like I literally have dust in my eyes that I simply can't remove.
• Blood shot veiny eyes, one specific vein on my right eye is pretty long and large.
• I get tiny white bump/pimple kind of things in the inner part of my eye lids, they tend to come and go away on their own every once in a while, I'm not exactly sure if those are called "styes".
• I can see visible red veins near my meibomian glands.
• I've got a bunch of floaters on each eye, specially on my right eye, I used to have one in each eye before, but the new ones disturb my view specially when reading stuff on the PC with white backgrounds, they sort of come in the way when I'm moving my eyes around, I don't have any flashing symptoms though.

What I've done to get some relief:

• I've visited around 4 eye doctors (ophthalmologists) in the past year, I got my retina checked a couple of times and was told that it's 100% fine without any signs of scarring or anything like that so the floaters are most probably benign.
  
  As for the dry eye symptoms, they were completely useless in that regard, all they had to say is that my eyes are completely 100% normal and there's nothing wrong with me (they did some normal vision tests, eye pressure and slit lamp test), at most they gave me a couple of eye drops/gels! Funny thing is that not even a single doctor inspected my eye lids, I mean I'm not a doctor, but that just shows what kind of a low service I'm getting here.
  
• Drops that I've tried so far are, artificial eye drops and gels:
  *Refresh Plus (preservative free)
  *Blink intensive tears
  *Tears Naturale Free (preservative free)
  *GenTeal Gel
  
  One of the doctors also prescribed me some Efemoline drops to cure possible non-infectious conjunctivitis, that thing felt like adding dust into my eyes.
  
  All of those were pretty much useless, the artificial eye drops barely gave me a 2 minutes relief.
  
• I've been using warm compresses around twice a day and do a lid scrub once a day, those do get me some kind of relief (I'd say around 15 minutes) and after a while my eyes felt a Bit better, but the problem is still very much there.
  
• When I'm outside and need some relief, best thing I can do is wash my eyes with very warm water, it does make 'em feel a bit better and less "dusty".

After doing some research over the net, I feel like I most probably have MGD (Meibomian Gland Dysfunction), those white bumps and red visible veins that seem inflamed near the glands are the main reasons why I think that. I also have some feeling that I Might have rheumatoid arthritis (I get morning stiffness and pain in my right hand that goes away in 15-25 minutes), but it's very hard to find a good doctor around here to diagnose/confirm that and I'm still in the search for one. I don't have dry mouth at all so I don't think I have Sjögrens Syndrome.

My main hobbies (like many others around the world) is surfing the internet and specially playing video games competitively, I've been video gaming since I was 5 years old and the stupid dry eyes have completely destroyed that for me, it only takes 10-15 minutes into a video game before I feel the DES symptoms, it totally takes out any kind of enjoyment which is the point of playing video games in the first place..

Overall I'm pretty healthy with good understanding of nutrition and exercise, but this issue has depressed me pretty badly lately and I feel like my general health has taken a dive with it. My plan is to keep on doing the hot compresses and I'll be looking more into following a strict anti inflammation diet with lots of Omega 3s and low Omega 6 intake in the next couple of months and see how that goes. I've also been reading up about MGP (Meibomian Gland Probing) but been hearing lots of mixed views about it and it doesn't seem to be "tested" enough. I tend to stay away from antiboitics, but I'm researching on whether using something like doxycycline will help me out if nothing else worked for me. Not using any eye drops at the moment because nothing worked for more than a couple of minutes for me.

I really don't care much about my eyes looking "red" or "veiny", I just want to feel good, I'm willing to even use a drop once every hour or 2 if it'll actually give me the pleasure of feeling "Normal" during that time, but none of those seem to work for me.

Sorry for the very long post, I just had to let this out of my system, any suggestions(eyes drops..etc)/info/tips would be much appreciated.

[mariposa]

Wow I did not even know that there is a country named Bahrain good to know.

[littlemermaid]

Wow I did not even know that there is a country named Bahrain good to know.

Ha, Mariposa ~ Dryeyetalk is truly inter-national, that's one reason why it helps people exchange information so much and we love it. Littlemermaid managed to get her eyes well enough in July to play music and sing in the Basilica in Miechow, Arka Panna Church in Nowa Huta, and St Katherine's church, Krakow x

Hope MetallicA found a doctor to help him.