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Hoping not to jinx myself, but it's been five years, so here goes.
I was on this website for two years starting in 2016, suffering in what seemed like endless dry eye hell tunnel. I woke up every two hours from pain, wore moisture chamber glasses that looked like goggles, tried my best to work staring at a computer 8 hrs a day (and failed, but no one noticed), drove home at lunch to spend it doing a warm compress, gave up on makeup, kept social activities to minimum and suffered thru the ones I attended with no joy. While talking to friends I was actually thinking about how much my eyes hurt. I could not concentrate at work meetings. Literally the only time I was not in pain was when I had wet warm compresses on my eyes. I spent hours and hours and hours researching dry eye. I switched between PubMed and this website. My brain was overflowing with dry eye info. I quickly opened my pocket book to pay for products and services. I stopped caring how much these things cost; didn't even think about it. I tried all kinds of diet modifications with earnest. I dove down every available rabbit hole. I hated my life.
The first doctor I went to told me I had grade 3+ MGD, and that it was a progressive disease that was not going to get better. He told me to do warm eye compresses and sent me on my way. And I believed him for a long time. I found him by researching every one of the 36 eye doctors on my insurance plan. He was the only one with extensive info on dry eye info on his website. But he didn't actually know anything about dry eye and should not have been treating dry eye patients. Nearly two years later when looking into IPL that I learned about on this website, I found a doctor a couple of hours away. During my evaluation he mentioned that the root cause of my dry eye was a loss of testosterone during menopause (WHAT?). Then he said I had ocular rosacea (WHAT?). The rest of the conversation was about the IPL. I did four IPL sessions which helped. I turned to this website. I dug up info on testosterone + dry eye and ocular rosacea + dry eye. I learned that people with rosacea have a very high frequency of demodex which cause dry eye, and bought Cliradex wipes. I tried having my primary doctor prescribe testosterone but that did not help me. So I went back on PubMed and discovered that DHEA is a parent hormone that your body uses to create testosterone. I bought DHEA 2mg. BAM that was it. That was the biggie. But I also had demodex from ocular rosacea. The Cliradex + the DHEA resolved my dry eye. Two simple online purchases, after all that. Also, my eyes do not like red wine AT ALL.
What is my current situation? No eye drops during the day. I sometimes use them when I wake up in the middle of night. I do WET eye compresses when I wake up and when I go to sleep. I use Avenovo spray just before falling asleep. I use Systane lid wipes after removing makeup. I do IPL every 1 to 1.5 years as a maintenance.That's it! I live a normal life again. I think my eyes might be slightly dryer than an average person, but not always. I don't think about my eyes. I hope to continue this way, and I thank Rebecca for making this website available. I'm not convinced that I would have made my discoveries without it.
I say, don't say dry eye is not curable, because that depends on the cause. And that crushes the hope of people who can be cured. Always steer clear of docs who will only tell you what's in 10 year old valid, reliable, quantitative evidence-based clinical trial studies. We don't have time to wait for that!
I was on this website for two years starting in 2016, suffering in what seemed like endless dry eye hell tunnel. I woke up every two hours from pain, wore moisture chamber glasses that looked like goggles, tried my best to work staring at a computer 8 hrs a day (and failed, but no one noticed), drove home at lunch to spend it doing a warm compress, gave up on makeup, kept social activities to minimum and suffered thru the ones I attended with no joy. While talking to friends I was actually thinking about how much my eyes hurt. I could not concentrate at work meetings. Literally the only time I was not in pain was when I had wet warm compresses on my eyes. I spent hours and hours and hours researching dry eye. I switched between PubMed and this website. My brain was overflowing with dry eye info. I quickly opened my pocket book to pay for products and services. I stopped caring how much these things cost; didn't even think about it. I tried all kinds of diet modifications with earnest. I dove down every available rabbit hole. I hated my life.
The first doctor I went to told me I had grade 3+ MGD, and that it was a progressive disease that was not going to get better. He told me to do warm eye compresses and sent me on my way. And I believed him for a long time. I found him by researching every one of the 36 eye doctors on my insurance plan. He was the only one with extensive info on dry eye info on his website. But he didn't actually know anything about dry eye and should not have been treating dry eye patients. Nearly two years later when looking into IPL that I learned about on this website, I found a doctor a couple of hours away. During my evaluation he mentioned that the root cause of my dry eye was a loss of testosterone during menopause (WHAT?). Then he said I had ocular rosacea (WHAT?). The rest of the conversation was about the IPL. I did four IPL sessions which helped. I turned to this website. I dug up info on testosterone + dry eye and ocular rosacea + dry eye. I learned that people with rosacea have a very high frequency of demodex which cause dry eye, and bought Cliradex wipes. I tried having my primary doctor prescribe testosterone but that did not help me. So I went back on PubMed and discovered that DHEA is a parent hormone that your body uses to create testosterone. I bought DHEA 2mg. BAM that was it. That was the biggie. But I also had demodex from ocular rosacea. The Cliradex + the DHEA resolved my dry eye. Two simple online purchases, after all that. Also, my eyes do not like red wine AT ALL.
What is my current situation? No eye drops during the day. I sometimes use them when I wake up in the middle of night. I do WET eye compresses when I wake up and when I go to sleep. I use Avenovo spray just before falling asleep. I use Systane lid wipes after removing makeup. I do IPL every 1 to 1.5 years as a maintenance.That's it! I live a normal life again. I think my eyes might be slightly dryer than an average person, but not always. I don't think about my eyes. I hope to continue this way, and I thank Rebecca for making this website available. I'm not convinced that I would have made my discoveries without it.
I say, don't say dry eye is not curable, because that depends on the cause. And that crushes the hope of people who can be cured. Always steer clear of docs who will only tell you what's in 10 year old valid, reliable, quantitative evidence-based clinical trial studies. We don't have time to wait for that!
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