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I am writing this here because I hope it helps somebody with similar problems as I have had for the last four years.
My dry eyes problems were caused by four things:
Three years ago I had to stop wearing contacts (except for surfing as I'm blind without them). Two years ago my eyes couldn’t handle contacts at all anymore. What was even worse, was that my eyes were extremely dry even without the contacts.
I went to an eye doctor. The first one just gave me eye drops and gave hardly any information about what was wrong. The second one said it was severe MGD and blepharitis and there was nothing she could do. She said I would just have to use the eye drops and deal with the pain for the rest of my life.
When I used Artelac drops (very low viscocity) I had to reapply a drop in each eye every 5 minutes. Vidisic carbogel (high viscocity) worked a lot better; I ‘only’ had to reapply drops every hour.
I did not accept the diagnosis of these eye doctors, so I went to the third one. She basically told me the same thing as the previous doctor.
I started reading about my affliction on the internet. I found a scientific article, written in my native language, about the problems I had. I found out the person who wrote it also treated people with this condition.
So about two years ago I went to see her. Her recovery plan was the following:
I have done this routine for the last two years and finally things have improved enough to write this story. Since a few months I hardly use my eyedrops anymore. Maybe one drop in every four/five days. I can’t express how happy I am to disprove the diagnosis I had received from the eye doctors.
So my advice is find a proper dry eye expert to help you and maybe try a similar routine as I have. And don’t give up hope! It took me 2 years to come where I am now, so don’t despair when you don’t see much improvement after a couple of months.
Update: I wrote this down in january this year. It is now may and I only have to use a drop every few weeks. :-) I am still doing the above mentioned routine each and every day though.
If you have questions, I would be happy to answer them!
My dry eyes problems were caused by four things:
- At work hanging above a small heater unit during the winter (while wearing soft contact lenses).
- Wavesurfing at least once a week for a year (also while wearing soft contact lenses). My eyes got very red and dry because of the salty water.
- Riding long distances on the scooter without any wind protection
- And last but not least the soft contact lenses themselves.
Three years ago I had to stop wearing contacts (except for surfing as I'm blind without them). Two years ago my eyes couldn’t handle contacts at all anymore. What was even worse, was that my eyes were extremely dry even without the contacts.
I went to an eye doctor. The first one just gave me eye drops and gave hardly any information about what was wrong. The second one said it was severe MGD and blepharitis and there was nothing she could do. She said I would just have to use the eye drops and deal with the pain for the rest of my life.
When I used Artelac drops (very low viscocity) I had to reapply a drop in each eye every 5 minutes. Vidisic carbogel (high viscocity) worked a lot better; I ‘only’ had to reapply drops every hour.
I did not accept the diagnosis of these eye doctors, so I went to the third one. She basically told me the same thing as the previous doctor.
I started reading about my affliction on the internet. I found a scientific article, written in my native language, about the problems I had. I found out the person who wrote it also treated people with this condition.
So about two years ago I went to see her. Her recovery plan was the following:
- See her every few weeks and after a couple of times, every few months. When I was there she would monitor my eyes and manually extract the contents from my meibomian glands. (Something my eye doctor did not dare doing.) They were so clogged up that she couldnt do them all the first time (some would be too painful, she said). She also was a great mental support, telling me of improvements every time I visited even though at times I felt there was no improvement at all.
- Every morning and every evening heat treatment (microwave a small bag of, I don’t know rice?, and put it on my eyes for ten minutes). Very important is that the bag should not feel hot as it worsenes the problems. After 10 minutes squeeze the eyes as hard as you can two times, 30 seconds each time.
- Every morning and evening clean my eyes with Sterilid (a kind of foam). After six month this decreased to only cleaning in the morning.
- Every night before going to bed apply a bit of Vitapos in each eye (it is a thick gel and also contains vitamine A, although I don’t know if that helped).
- Don’t use as much heating in my home. In the winter I’ve kept it at around 16-18 degrees celcius. This releaved the symptoms quite a bit (and I saved A LOT on my energy bill :-) ).
- Switch the computer/tablet/smartphone off for more outdoor walks (if the humidity is not very low) and eat healthy.
- Use Vidisic carbogel drops as much as needed. (Best is to use the kind of eye drops that has the optimal viscosity for your eye situation)
- If you have one eye bothering you the most: check if you lie on that eye on your pillow at night (was the case with me)
I have done this routine for the last two years and finally things have improved enough to write this story. Since a few months I hardly use my eyedrops anymore. Maybe one drop in every four/five days. I can’t express how happy I am to disprove the diagnosis I had received from the eye doctors.
So my advice is find a proper dry eye expert to help you and maybe try a similar routine as I have. And don’t give up hope! It took me 2 years to come where I am now, so don’t despair when you don’t see much improvement after a couple of months.
Update: I wrote this down in january this year. It is now may and I only have to use a drop every few weeks. :-) I am still doing the above mentioned routine each and every day though.
If you have questions, I would be happy to answer them!
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