24 With Evaporative Dry Eye....Any Advice?

[luvmykitty]

Hi. I found this forum after my eye doctor diagnosed me. For years now, I've had problems with dry eyes, mostly only when I wear contacts. I dont really notice my dry eye if I wear my glasses, except for an hour or so after I remove my contacts.

I started wearing contacts at age 14. Through all the brands, none have given me comfort and stable vision (I also need toric lenses).

My new eye doctor finally tested me and said I have evaporative dry eye. She said I make plenty of tears, they just evaporate too quickly. My tears evaporated completely in 4 seconds in my right eye, and 3 seconds in my left eye. My eye doctor said normal is 10-15 seconds.

Right now my eye doctor has me taking 3,000mg of fish oil a day, and using drops 3x a day if I dont have contacts in and every 2 hours with contacts in. And I'm trying Proclear Toric contacts right now. I actually have an appointment today because my vision is so blurry with these contacts, eve though it is my prescription.

What else can I do to help evaporative dry eye? My doctor mentioned punctal plugs, but seems reluctant to do them for some reason. I had the temporary kind before (different doctor) and they really did help. I'm going to ask about it again today. I really want to wear contacts, i hate my glasses and I play sports and my glasses get in the way. I'd love to have LASIK done, but I'm waiting until I have the money. My eye doctor said since my dry eye only bothers me with contacts, that LASIK shouldnt be a problem for me.

I hate dry eyes.

[sazy123]

Your doctor is right not to do punctual plugs, they wont help for purely evaporative dry eye.

How bad do your eyes feel?

You sound similar to me i tried to wear all sorts of contacts wheni was younger (before my dry eye turned severe) but non of them were comfortable enough for more than 1 hour- this was when i had no symptoms of dry eye without contacts. Now with severe dry eye my tbut was tested a while ago and it was 5 secs both eyes (but i suspect its less). And i cant wear contacts any more at all they are just to dry!

In fact it was probably the contacts that caused the dry eye in the first place at 17, there is a study that shows they can.

So unless you are trying to wear them for theraputic purposes, i wouldnt wear them at all and just wear glasses, its not worth potentially making it worse.

You should treat the problem, you might bennifit from hot compresses, lid scrubs and other things on this site, that might improve them.

[alisonW]

Hi there....

I agree with sazy123 that continuing to wear contacts will likely only make your eyes worse. I kept wearing mine long after I should have and now my eyes are much dryer. (I wore contacts for 23 years.) Also, I disagree with you doc who said that LASIK wold probably be OK for you since your eyes are only dry with contacts it. I know of 2 people in real life, and many on this board who were told the same thing and now suffer daily from tremendous pain and dryness because of the LASIK. I would not recommend it at all to you. I, like you, hated wearing my glasses (and also play sports) and it literally took me and entire year to get used to wearing glasses all the time...it can be done though and your eyes will thank you.

[bernmee]

Do not get Lasik.

I, like many others here, was not able to tolerate contacts so I got Lasik. If only I had contact to worry about now!!

The other posters are right. If your contacts are hurting your eyes than you need to stay away from them.

You also need to get that oil flowing again so you don't have big problems down the line, such as pain all the time rather than just when you wear contacts.

Learn to work with what you have. Please don't get Lasik. There are so many people on this site who are suffering because of it.

Bernadette

[Aaron77]

If you can't stand regular contacts pay the couple thousand bucks to get a specialty pair fitted and made up. There are plenty of stories on this site about people who have had a lot of success with the sclerals and specialty RGP's.