Dry Eye Journal

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Preface:
Couple reasons for making starting this post.

1. I have spent a decent amount of time looking around the forum, but didn’t really see a post about someone who had gotten successfully cured. My symptoms are going downhill quickly, and not seeing someone who had overcome the disease was demoralizing.

I hope to become fully cured and provide hope to those suffering.

Currently, I would say I am at the worst stage of my dry eye journey. I have quit my full-time job and decided to go full time in attacking the disease. Fortunately, I have money saved up, but it won’t last very long.

2. I have been writing my experience/symptoms/trial & errors on a notebook for about a month, and it has been life changing as I started to understand what my root causes were. Thought I would share them on the forum.

My condition:

1. Minibiography states that I am level 3 in terms of glands.
2. Glands are pretty bad – Lower glands are not even producing pasty oils.
3. No Sjogren or aqueous deficiency.

Treatments tried (in order)

1. Doxycycline – No relief
2. Punctual plugs (4) – complete relief for about 3 years, but eyes are dry even with them now. Currently have uppers plugged to reduce inflammation
3. Restasis – Burning after application, had to stop in 2 weeks
4. Xiidra – Tried for 2 months, no improvements
5. Lipiflow – didn’t get much relief
6. iLux – Same concept as lipiflow, but got some temporary relief
7. Azithromycin – Started about 2 months ago – seems to be helping.

Root causes from my experience

1. Food – I read one of the posts about someone getting healed with a Autoimmune Paleolithic diet. Although my eyes would feel a lot drier after a certain meal, never made the connection.
2. Weird blinking – Although I am only 24, I have a lot of wrinkles on my forehead. Turns out, I have been raising my brows most of the time. I am assuming it had somehow lead me to blink using some other muscle than the eye lid, thus leading to partial blinking. After consciously changing my habit to not raise my brows, eyes have gotten less dry & bloodshot. Moreover, trying to make full blinks now.

Current treatment regimen

1. Strict diet - Currently, I am currently sticking to autoimmune protocol (AIP), only eating sweet potatoes & stir-fried veggies (you can easily find the foods allowed online – potatoes and veggies are just my choices.). Seems to be doing the trick as I don’t get spikes of dryness after a meal.
2. Gut healing – As mentioned above, I believe one of my main root causes is from digestive system. Apparently, taking an antibiotic (like doxycycline) even once is enough to kill all the bacteria in your digestive system, causing damage & leaky gut. This then could result to undigested particles entering the blood stream and triggering the inflammatory response, which I think could inflame the eyes. Taking probiotic supplements & detox to heal the body.
3. Lid Hygiene – Bought a big bottle of lid cleanser and doing it twice a day (morning & night)
4. Daily steam sauna – Was doing warm compresses, but decide to use steam room at my gym to heat up the glands & doing blinking exercises to hopefully melt & push out backed up oils. Hopefully it can raise it to higher temp than warm compresses.
5. Azithromycin – Before going to sleep every night
6. Vitamin D – Not sure if it’s related to dry eyes, but trying to bring everything up to normal. Like most office workers, I don’t get enough exposure to the sun. Following the protocol for next 6 months of taking daily 5000mcg of Vitamin D & exposure to the sun for 15 mins to replenish.
7. Fish oil - ~3000 EPH+DHA daily.

Future Regimen

1. IPL – Booked an IPL session with Dr. Toyos on 3/18/19. I live in Georgia and it’s about 4 hours away, but giving it a shot.
2. iLux – only procedure that actually helped me feel oils producing from glands (moisture when squeezing the lids). Trying to see if it’s possible to do it once a month. Optometrist is talking to the manufacturer to see if doing so will be safe.
3. Probing – As it’s invasive procedure, trying to stay away. However, will have to pull the trigger if nothings working.

Closing thoughts:

I am only 24. Fresh out of college, all I wanted to do was start my own business, become financially independent to retire my parents, and grow my career like normal people. But my life is currently at a pause. I had to drop everything and treat the condition now, as it’s only going to get irreversibly worse. I often ask myself why this is happening to me. At one point, I thought about making ridiculous decisions, but I couldn’t because of my family.

I believe overcoming this disease will be setting a strong moral foundation for rest of my life. I believe cure is possible. For everyone suffering, don’t give up. As Rebecca said, you are not alone, and you will not be like this forever.

I will be editing the posts for updates.