Wore contacts for a couple hours!

[willwork4tears]

So I pretty much had abandoned all hope for contacts.

I wore gas perms religiously (up to 18 hours a day) for 10 years. All through H.S. and college I didn't even own a pair of glasses. During grad school I started wearing glasses more and more. By the time I finished I was diagnosed with Dry Eye and couldn't wear the gas perms at all.

Last March I switched to soft with some success. By Fall, humidity had fallen and I was so dry I just gave up on contacts completely. I hadn't worn my contacts in about 4-5 months.

I've been feeling pretty good the last couple weeks as a result of increasing my cyclosporine (0.2%), so I decided to pop them in and see how it went. Not so bad....I was able to wear them somewhat comfortably for about 4 hours!

[wetEyes]

Dude, do yourself a favor and stop wearing contact lenses! Haven't you learned anything from getting dry eyes because of contact lenses in the first place?

[jenny2008]

I guess some people have 'worse' cases of Sjogrens than others.. I was diagnosed and as soon as my eyes got bad there is no way I could wear or would try to wear contacts... omg... good luck!.... When i seldom have a decent eye day i thank my lucky stars but no way would i wear contacts which make your eyes dry and discrupt your tear film further.... my doc would prob kill me!! wow... be careful

[willwork4tears]

Dude...that was an ignorant comment. Haven't you learned any manners? I didn't get dry eye from wearing contacts. I have Sjogrens Syndrome.

Dude, do yourself a favor and stop wearing contact lenses! Haven't you learned anything from getting dry eyes because of contact lenses in the first place?

[Michael2]

severe dry eye from contact lenses seems like such a 'convenient' answer. i think we dont want our body to fail by itself so we tend to blame other things first. no its more likely inflammation from within/ sjogrens/ an external factor like antidepressants that causes contact lens intolerance. course im no doc

[Rebecca Petris]

Wearing contacts on eyes with severe chronic dryness can cause problems quite independent of any cause-&-effect relationship between contacts (gas perms or soft) and dry eye, so I don't think you need to believe contacts are bad to avoid contacts when eyes are dry. I think there's quite a few people here who occasionally wear contacts. I think that persisting in daily wear when you're under treatment for dry eye syndrome is usually counterproductive... on the other hand, confusing matters rather, there's also the fact that soft contacts are used therapeutically in dry eye.

[jenny2008]

I agree.. I didn't get dry eyes from contacts.. i stopped wearing mine when i got diagnossed with sjogrens and because my eyes hurt so bad.. some people with sjogrens may have it worse in their mouth-and maybe can tolerate contacts.. now it seems everything i do i just have to be super careful with my eyes.. but i will never blame it on wearing contacts...

[willwork4tears]

As I previously stated I wore contacts exclusively for over a decade. The comfort and convenience of contacts was a difficult privilege for me to give up (glasses get smeary, dirty, wet, foggy, don't provide good peripheral vision, etc.). I hadn't been able to wear my contacts for several months due to severe dry eye. OBVIOUSLY, I wouldn't sabotage my eyes further by forcing contacts on them when they are really dry and irritated. But it would be nice to be able to wear them on special occasions or on really sunny days when I need to wear sunglasses for light sensitivity. I'd been feeling a lot better lately and thought it would be fine to try to slowly reintroduce contacts for occasional use. I feel a lot prettier and more confident in contacts - I already feel bad enough about being recently diagnosed with a chronic, progressive disease; nothing to make me feel better like being forced to hide behind a pair of glasses.

[wetEyes]

What?!? The literature is LOADED with evidence that contact lenses cause dry eyes. It is not even debated anymore because the link is so damn clear. One of Germany's top dry eye specialists told me that half the long-term contact lens wearers develop chronic dry eyes.

there is not eought information out there to indicate that contact lenses cause dry eyes - they make dry eyes worse but the dryness typically exist before contact lens use.

[irish eyes]

I've seen several doctors and experts in the field of dry eye but haven't met one who could (or even would) identify a `cause' with such certainty.

If your doctor's assertion that half the long-term contact lens wearers develop dry eyes, did s/he provide an explanation of why the other half don't have the same problems?

There may well be correlation between these factors but that does not imply a cause and effect relationship between the two

I've always suffered with dry eyes but I don't know what tipped the balance and made it into the debilitating condition I have now. I have never worn lenses.

[wetEyes]

Well, I think contact lenses and dry eyes are like smoking and lung cancer. When somebody has lung cancer, no doctor can with absolute certainty pinpoint smoking as the cause. However, most lung cancer is caused by smoking just like most young people with dry eyes who have no underlying disease (such as Sjogren's or Rosacea) have developed the disease because of contact lenses or refractive surgery.

As to the question why some contact lens wearers develop dry eyes and other don't: This might due to a combination of factors such as the person's physiological predisposition, the kind of contact lenses used, the daily wearing time, lens hygiene, climate, nutrition, etc. etc.

[Rebecca Petris]

most young people with dry eyes who have no underlying disease (such as Sjogren's or Rosacea) have developed the disease because of contact lenses or refractive surgery.

I don't think I can agree with that. I know there is a definite relationship but "most... because of" is going pretty far. - I'm not sure that can be supported either on a scientific or anecdotal basis at this point. Contact lenses are an easy target to blame because widespread fulltime of soft contacts from a young age has coincided (in the last couple decades) with an increase in dry eye but it's definitely not the only phenomenon that coincides. The most I would venture to say is that it is often part of the picture.... more like your second paragraph wetEyes - there's so many factors. Don't get me wrong though: I DO blame contacts and I worry much about young people wearing them now and what will happen to them.

This makes me think of my own eyes. I wore soft lenses for 20 years. Then I got LASIK and whoosh. Who's to say what would have happened if I hadn't? Maybe 5 years later I would have become one of the many mysterious overnight dry eye cases on this board (oops, I guess the board wouldn't have been here ) or maybe I would have gone on happily wearing contacts for another 30 years with no dryness. Maybe I was on the verge of a dry eye 'breakdown' due to MGD, mild nocturnal lagophthalmos and contacts and LASIK pushed me over the edge. Maybe my dryness is exclusively due to the LASIK. I don't know. One day I'll ask God (if I still care at that point).

[wetEyes]

Rebecca, how many people under the age of 30 do you know who have chronic dry eye who neither have an underlying disease nor have worn contact lenses or had refractive surgery? And how many young dry eye sufferers you know have a history of contact lens wear or refractive surgery? I bet the first group is much bigger.