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Dear all,
I have finally found a solution for my dry eye problems, I am not sure if it will work for other people. This was trial and error from my part, no doctor told me to do this, but I read many blogs and observed in my life what made it better and what made it worse. I have told my solution to doctors and they are very sceptical, but no one has done studies to confirm or reject this solution. So it may be worth trying.
First of all, my dry eye problem is inflammation of the channels that distribute the oily substances over your tears, so that they are not drying too fast. These oil channels are in the upper eye lid. Without the oil, the tear film breaks up and your eyes dry too fast. Sometimes my eye lid was a little swollen, that is because the oil was building up in my eye lid, the channels were shut because of the inflammation and the oil could not get to the eye. You can squize the oil out of these channels with your fingers or with hot compresses, and then you are releaved for a little while. So my problem is not a problem of not enough tear liquid, and my solution may not work for people with not enough tear liquid.
I will not go into detail on how I found this out, but here are the substances that reduce the inflammation, in order of importance:
high dose of VitC
high dose of VitD
omega 3
VitA
You need to be carefull because high doses of these vitamins are toxic, but if you suffer so much from your dry eyes as I do, then you take that risk.
The procedure is as follows:
2 to 5 g VitC per day for 3 to 5 days a week. You need to experiment a bit what works best for you. It is important that you reach high peak concentrations of VitC, so don't use the slow release dosing, use the soluble VitC. Start with 1g in the morning and 1g in the evening for 5 days a week but not more. Then stop taking VitC for 2 days. Together that is a nice weekly schedule. Take care of your teeth, VitC is very acid, so I always drink something afterwards to rinse my mouth and avoid that my teeth get corroded. You have to drink a lot during the day, or you risk kidney stones. VitC is secreted with the urine, so you don't store it in your body for long. Your urine may get a little more yellow. If you use too much too often, the effect disappears, this is because you activate your enzymes that break down VitC, your enzymes do this to protect your body. That is also why you cannot take VitC in such high doses every day, your enzymes get overactive and break it down as fast as you take it so it no longer has any effect. For that reason, you stop taking VitC for 2 days before you start again for the next 5 days. To give those enzymes a rest, also don’t take VitC rich food such as fruit in the days inbetween. I now take 3g VitC per day for 4 days a week. I have gone through various combinations, for example 5g a day for 2 days a week, and other combinations. It took me years to find the right combination. If it worked for you for a few weeks, and then not any more, this means that you need to shift to more days without VitC. To do that, first stop VitC for at least a week, then start again with less days VitC, more days without VitC and perhaps higher doses, such as 3g/day instead of 2g/day. If you have to go up to 5g/day for the effect to last, then adapt your schedule to more days without VitC.
The days that you don't take VitC, take VitD. This can be in various forms. Also here you have to experiment what works best for you. I take per day 2 capsules of fish oil, 4 capsules of fish liver oil, and 1 pipet of liquid VitD, spread over morning and evening. The total dose that I take per day is about the maximum dose allowed in one week, and I take that for 3 days a week. You need to take care to take enough calcium (like milk, but if you have lactose intolerance like me that is also a problem) or use a VitD dosing with calcium in it, otherwise the high dose VitD will solubilize the calcium of your bones and you could get osteoporosis. VitD is stored in your fat tissue, so any overdosing stays there for a long time. When I am on holidays in a sunny area, I sunbath my eyes (with eyelids closed) and then I don't feel the need to take extra VitD. The message is go to sunny places a few times a year, and at that time don't take extra VitD, in this way you avoid overdosing in the long run. Such sun bathing of your upper eye lid brings the VitD right to the proper place, you cannot overdose VitD in this way. You need to sit in the sun like that for at least 30 min per day, put enough sunscreen on the rest of your face (not on your eye lid). Take care not to expose your naked eye to sunlight.
Omega3 is in fish oil, VitA is also in the fish oil and fish liver oil, so you have already a good dose with the treatment described above. I take extra omega3 every day (so also on the days that I don't take fish liver oil but VitC), two big spoons of flax seed oil per day.
You can already see that the final solution is quite toxic for your body, but so far I have had no side effects, and I am doing this for a few years now. And finally, after all this experimenting, I do not have dry eyes as long as I keep this regimen. When I go abroad and forget my stock of vitamines and I run into a weekend with no shops or pharmacies open, within a day my problem comes back. If I stop this regimen for several days, I need to put drops in my eyes every hour or so, sometimes every 15 min. When I start the regimen again, my problem is gone within a day. So I am quite sure that the regimen works for me.
I have told this regimen also to other people, and I know of at least one other person that has her problem solved, just like me.
I hope it helps, let me know if it helps for you. If you tried it and it does not work, please also tell me. I would like to know for which proportion of people it helps, and for which kind of problem it helps or does not help. I am a scientist and would like to collect all these data to publish it somewhere so that other people can also use it if it works. It may help also for other types of inflammation problems. I know of one women that uses the VitC part of my solution, and it works for her rheuma (which was not so severe but painful, and that is now solved for her).
Let me know whether it works for you.
Cheers,
Annemie
PS I put this message also on one of the other threads, if it works for you spread it wherever you think it is needed
I have finally found a solution for my dry eye problems, I am not sure if it will work for other people. This was trial and error from my part, no doctor told me to do this, but I read many blogs and observed in my life what made it better and what made it worse. I have told my solution to doctors and they are very sceptical, but no one has done studies to confirm or reject this solution. So it may be worth trying.
First of all, my dry eye problem is inflammation of the channels that distribute the oily substances over your tears, so that they are not drying too fast. These oil channels are in the upper eye lid. Without the oil, the tear film breaks up and your eyes dry too fast. Sometimes my eye lid was a little swollen, that is because the oil was building up in my eye lid, the channels were shut because of the inflammation and the oil could not get to the eye. You can squize the oil out of these channels with your fingers or with hot compresses, and then you are releaved for a little while. So my problem is not a problem of not enough tear liquid, and my solution may not work for people with not enough tear liquid.
I will not go into detail on how I found this out, but here are the substances that reduce the inflammation, in order of importance:
high dose of VitC
high dose of VitD
omega 3
VitA
You need to be carefull because high doses of these vitamins are toxic, but if you suffer so much from your dry eyes as I do, then you take that risk.
The procedure is as follows:
2 to 5 g VitC per day for 3 to 5 days a week. You need to experiment a bit what works best for you. It is important that you reach high peak concentrations of VitC, so don't use the slow release dosing, use the soluble VitC. Start with 1g in the morning and 1g in the evening for 5 days a week but not more. Then stop taking VitC for 2 days. Together that is a nice weekly schedule. Take care of your teeth, VitC is very acid, so I always drink something afterwards to rinse my mouth and avoid that my teeth get corroded. You have to drink a lot during the day, or you risk kidney stones. VitC is secreted with the urine, so you don't store it in your body for long. Your urine may get a little more yellow. If you use too much too often, the effect disappears, this is because you activate your enzymes that break down VitC, your enzymes do this to protect your body. That is also why you cannot take VitC in such high doses every day, your enzymes get overactive and break it down as fast as you take it so it no longer has any effect. For that reason, you stop taking VitC for 2 days before you start again for the next 5 days. To give those enzymes a rest, also don’t take VitC rich food such as fruit in the days inbetween. I now take 3g VitC per day for 4 days a week. I have gone through various combinations, for example 5g a day for 2 days a week, and other combinations. It took me years to find the right combination. If it worked for you for a few weeks, and then not any more, this means that you need to shift to more days without VitC. To do that, first stop VitC for at least a week, then start again with less days VitC, more days without VitC and perhaps higher doses, such as 3g/day instead of 2g/day. If you have to go up to 5g/day for the effect to last, then adapt your schedule to more days without VitC.
The days that you don't take VitC, take VitD. This can be in various forms. Also here you have to experiment what works best for you. I take per day 2 capsules of fish oil, 4 capsules of fish liver oil, and 1 pipet of liquid VitD, spread over morning and evening. The total dose that I take per day is about the maximum dose allowed in one week, and I take that for 3 days a week. You need to take care to take enough calcium (like milk, but if you have lactose intolerance like me that is also a problem) or use a VitD dosing with calcium in it, otherwise the high dose VitD will solubilize the calcium of your bones and you could get osteoporosis. VitD is stored in your fat tissue, so any overdosing stays there for a long time. When I am on holidays in a sunny area, I sunbath my eyes (with eyelids closed) and then I don't feel the need to take extra VitD. The message is go to sunny places a few times a year, and at that time don't take extra VitD, in this way you avoid overdosing in the long run. Such sun bathing of your upper eye lid brings the VitD right to the proper place, you cannot overdose VitD in this way. You need to sit in the sun like that for at least 30 min per day, put enough sunscreen on the rest of your face (not on your eye lid). Take care not to expose your naked eye to sunlight.
Omega3 is in fish oil, VitA is also in the fish oil and fish liver oil, so you have already a good dose with the treatment described above. I take extra omega3 every day (so also on the days that I don't take fish liver oil but VitC), two big spoons of flax seed oil per day.
You can already see that the final solution is quite toxic for your body, but so far I have had no side effects, and I am doing this for a few years now. And finally, after all this experimenting, I do not have dry eyes as long as I keep this regimen. When I go abroad and forget my stock of vitamines and I run into a weekend with no shops or pharmacies open, within a day my problem comes back. If I stop this regimen for several days, I need to put drops in my eyes every hour or so, sometimes every 15 min. When I start the regimen again, my problem is gone within a day. So I am quite sure that the regimen works for me.
I have told this regimen also to other people, and I know of at least one other person that has her problem solved, just like me.
I hope it helps, let me know if it helps for you. If you tried it and it does not work, please also tell me. I would like to know for which proportion of people it helps, and for which kind of problem it helps or does not help. I am a scientist and would like to collect all these data to publish it somewhere so that other people can also use it if it works. It may help also for other types of inflammation problems. I know of one women that uses the VitC part of my solution, and it works for her rheuma (which was not so severe but painful, and that is now solved for her).
Let me know whether it works for you.
Cheers,
Annemie
PS I put this message also on one of the other threads, if it works for you spread it wherever you think it is needed
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