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Hello everyone,
I registered on this forum 9 years ago when I was on a really dark place, my eyes were killing me, I didnt have much knowledge about dry eyes and I was confused and depressed. Today I feel much better and I remembered this forum (kudos to the owners that you still maintain it!) so I was thinking maybe I could write something here to give hope to people who suffer with this terrible condition.
Dry eyes can be caused by many things and this might not help everyone, I think it's important to put this into some context and tell you something about me. Im 35yo guy living in Central Europe, working in IT. I've been struggling with some form of dry eyes since I was a teenager but at one point it got really bad. Maybe when I was 20-21. I still don't know how exactly that happened but could be it was some auto-immune reaction or maybe it was a combination of heavy PC use (16 hours a day) and not enough sleep which caused a lot of inflammation in my eyes. The bad thing is that I didnt know what to do about it, I didnt know I could permanently mess up my eyes so I didnt do anything and just pushed on. The result is - after many hours spent on research and with doctors - now I know that I have advanced MGD, thanks to meibography I know that glands in my lower eyelids are basically gone and the ones in my upper eyelids are at 70 % at best.
At first I tried many eye doctors in my country - they didnt help. The knowledge about MGD was very basic and they basically told me to use lubricating eye drops. Fortunately after some time a specialized MGD doctor appeared in my city so I started visiting her and I'm very grateful she is here but that's not interesting for you. But back to the past - I decided to visit specialized dry eyes doctors in other countries in Europe. I did glands probing. I did lipiflow. I cleaned my eye lids every day. I tried all kinds of eye drops, night gels, steroids, omega 3s, moister chambers, all that stuff that is recommended. Nothing really helped or maybe it helped just a little but nothing major.
But now you are saying - just shut up already and tell us what worked for you. Fine, these are the things that I believe actually made a difference:
vitamin D3 - yes, this is the game changer for me. I dont remember reading much about this in terms of dry eye treatment or maybe it wasnt a major recommendation so I never tried it. It all started with Covid - one of the doctors I know did some study about Covid and vitamin D3 and how it's important to reduce inflammation in your body. I dont remember exactly how I put it together but I decided to include vitamin D3 in my daily supplements (I take multivitamin, probiotics, Omega 3s and VitD3 every day) and after a few months I feel much better! I used to have clogged meibomian glands almost every day - now I rarely have it, only if I strain my eyes a lot. I used to use eye drops 8x a day, now I use it only in the morning because my eyes still feel dry after sleep. Dont get me wrong, it's not like im back at my 100%. I still struggle in many situations like - A/C in my eyes, heaters during winter, strong wind - that still make my eyes dry and painful. But as I said, I lost over 50 % of my glands and it's not coming back so Im grateful at least for this.
But back to vitamin D3 - what's very important to know is how much you should take. Forget about recommended doses, from my point of view it's absolute nonsense. It's super low and it's not going to help you. They recommend 400-800 IU (international unit) but I take 6000 IU every day and it's on the safe side (I'm 80 kg). Many sources say taking 10000 IU is still completely safe. And I can confirm that after many months doing this I dont feel any negative impact, quite the opposite. Of course you might have some health condition which can change things so it's a good idea to do your own research and maybe start with lower dosages and increase it during time. Another important thing is the quality of vitamin D3. Me personally I get my vitamins from a fitness shop where I see they have a lot of knowledge about supplements and I get a combination of Vitamin D3 and K2 in a form of MCT oil which our bodies can absorb very well. Im not promoting any shop so just try to find a good source in your country by yourself.
Of all things, why did vitamin D3 help me? I've been thinking about it and the simple answer could be - I was just deficient in it. I didnt have enough. It makes sense to me because as an IT guy I spend most of my time inside and I'm not exposed to sunlight much. I should spend WAY more time outside but unfortunately this is my lifestyle, my job. Sitting by the window doesnt help, you need to be directly exposed to sunlight for a longer period of time to generate enough vitamin D. If you cannot do that like me, try supplements. I believe this could also help those guys who are in such a bad situation that they stay at home in a dark room. Guys, maybe try taking a lot of vitamin D3 and try to take walks outside as much as you can and have your skin exposed to sunlight - not only your face but preferably as much skin as possible.
The thing is, every one's condition might be different so this might not help you as much as it helped me. Think about your situation - are you exposed to sunlight enough? If not, try vitamin D3. It's similar thing to Omega 3s - even if it doesnt directly help your dry eye condition, it's not going to hurt you. It's actually going to help your body because it's such an important vitamin for reducing inflammation and other stuff. Just remember - find a good quality supplement, ideally something combined with vitamin K2, find the right dosage - dont take too little but also not too much and also - take it for at least 3 months before making conclusions.
probiotics - I already mentioned it but I also take probiotics every day. Gut health is SO important to overall health and I'm quite sure it also have impact on dry eyes. Again - I buy these from my favorite fitness shop. I take 1 capsule every day which contains 30 bilion probiotic cultures. In other words it's way more effective than eating a probiotic yogurt. Try to find a good quality one and take it for 3 months to make conclusions.
healthy diet - I used to always skip this point as - yeah yeah whatever - but well... it's important. If you eat unhealthy you will have inflammation in your body. Especially focus on cutting down sugar and carbs in general. Do your research. If you are really desperate just try keto diet. For me it's hard to not eat carbs at all so Im not doing it but from what I've seen it can help with MANY conditions.
environment - as I said I work with computers all day. What helped me - I found a remote job and now I work from home. It has some disadvantages as well but when I used to work in our office I didnt like that there was an A/C and I couldnt set it up as I wanted because there were other colleagues as well. The same with heaters. When Im at home I can set it up any way I want. Another thing that people often dont realize is that if you work with a laptop there is a heat coming from it and it goes straight to your eyes and of course you also blink less when working so it can dry up your eyes quite fast. People with healthy glands can deal with it but not us. I solved this by not using a laptop but desktop PC most of the time and I put this PC on the other side of the room and I use long cables. It would be better to have my PC and my table in different rooms but it's not possible for me. It might sound like too much but I also play videogames and that produces A LOT of heat so in my case this helps.
sleep - of course sleep is super important and if you dont do it right your eyes will feel bad. Of course you should go sleep earlier and sleep longer, you shouldnt stare at any display for 1 hour before sleep and so on. Honestly I've been struggling with this a lot. I go sleep late, I use my phone, my sleep is sometimes bad because I'm a light sleeper and anything can wake me up easily and once I wake up, my eyes feel bad the next day. What helped me was to use earplugs and sleep mask and also I realized that my girlfriend keeps waking me up because she sleep talks and of course she moves around. Sometimes it doesnt really wake me up completely but it still influences my sleep so I decided to sleep in another room which makes it so much better. It also solves snoring complains
I didnt want to make this text so long but here you have it. I hope this helps someone and let me know if you have some ideas or feedback. I totally understand that dry eyes are a terrible condition but guys, stay strong and keep fighting. If you are depressed then trust me, it will get better. Keep experimenting and finding what works for you. You will find a way. Or they will actually invent some treatment which will work for everyone. You never know. Good luck!
I registered on this forum 9 years ago when I was on a really dark place, my eyes were killing me, I didnt have much knowledge about dry eyes and I was confused and depressed. Today I feel much better and I remembered this forum (kudos to the owners that you still maintain it!) so I was thinking maybe I could write something here to give hope to people who suffer with this terrible condition.
Dry eyes can be caused by many things and this might not help everyone, I think it's important to put this into some context and tell you something about me. Im 35yo guy living in Central Europe, working in IT. I've been struggling with some form of dry eyes since I was a teenager but at one point it got really bad. Maybe when I was 20-21. I still don't know how exactly that happened but could be it was some auto-immune reaction or maybe it was a combination of heavy PC use (16 hours a day) and not enough sleep which caused a lot of inflammation in my eyes. The bad thing is that I didnt know what to do about it, I didnt know I could permanently mess up my eyes so I didnt do anything and just pushed on. The result is - after many hours spent on research and with doctors - now I know that I have advanced MGD, thanks to meibography I know that glands in my lower eyelids are basically gone and the ones in my upper eyelids are at 70 % at best.
At first I tried many eye doctors in my country - they didnt help. The knowledge about MGD was very basic and they basically told me to use lubricating eye drops. Fortunately after some time a specialized MGD doctor appeared in my city so I started visiting her and I'm very grateful she is here but that's not interesting for you. But back to the past - I decided to visit specialized dry eyes doctors in other countries in Europe. I did glands probing. I did lipiflow. I cleaned my eye lids every day. I tried all kinds of eye drops, night gels, steroids, omega 3s, moister chambers, all that stuff that is recommended. Nothing really helped or maybe it helped just a little but nothing major.
But now you are saying - just shut up already and tell us what worked for you. Fine, these are the things that I believe actually made a difference:
vitamin D3 - yes, this is the game changer for me. I dont remember reading much about this in terms of dry eye treatment or maybe it wasnt a major recommendation so I never tried it. It all started with Covid - one of the doctors I know did some study about Covid and vitamin D3 and how it's important to reduce inflammation in your body. I dont remember exactly how I put it together but I decided to include vitamin D3 in my daily supplements (I take multivitamin, probiotics, Omega 3s and VitD3 every day) and after a few months I feel much better! I used to have clogged meibomian glands almost every day - now I rarely have it, only if I strain my eyes a lot. I used to use eye drops 8x a day, now I use it only in the morning because my eyes still feel dry after sleep. Dont get me wrong, it's not like im back at my 100%. I still struggle in many situations like - A/C in my eyes, heaters during winter, strong wind - that still make my eyes dry and painful. But as I said, I lost over 50 % of my glands and it's not coming back so Im grateful at least for this.
But back to vitamin D3 - what's very important to know is how much you should take. Forget about recommended doses, from my point of view it's absolute nonsense. It's super low and it's not going to help you. They recommend 400-800 IU (international unit) but I take 6000 IU every day and it's on the safe side (I'm 80 kg). Many sources say taking 10000 IU is still completely safe. And I can confirm that after many months doing this I dont feel any negative impact, quite the opposite. Of course you might have some health condition which can change things so it's a good idea to do your own research and maybe start with lower dosages and increase it during time. Another important thing is the quality of vitamin D3. Me personally I get my vitamins from a fitness shop where I see they have a lot of knowledge about supplements and I get a combination of Vitamin D3 and K2 in a form of MCT oil which our bodies can absorb very well. Im not promoting any shop so just try to find a good source in your country by yourself.
Of all things, why did vitamin D3 help me? I've been thinking about it and the simple answer could be - I was just deficient in it. I didnt have enough. It makes sense to me because as an IT guy I spend most of my time inside and I'm not exposed to sunlight much. I should spend WAY more time outside but unfortunately this is my lifestyle, my job. Sitting by the window doesnt help, you need to be directly exposed to sunlight for a longer period of time to generate enough vitamin D. If you cannot do that like me, try supplements. I believe this could also help those guys who are in such a bad situation that they stay at home in a dark room. Guys, maybe try taking a lot of vitamin D3 and try to take walks outside as much as you can and have your skin exposed to sunlight - not only your face but preferably as much skin as possible.
The thing is, every one's condition might be different so this might not help you as much as it helped me. Think about your situation - are you exposed to sunlight enough? If not, try vitamin D3. It's similar thing to Omega 3s - even if it doesnt directly help your dry eye condition, it's not going to hurt you. It's actually going to help your body because it's such an important vitamin for reducing inflammation and other stuff. Just remember - find a good quality supplement, ideally something combined with vitamin K2, find the right dosage - dont take too little but also not too much and also - take it for at least 3 months before making conclusions.
probiotics - I already mentioned it but I also take probiotics every day. Gut health is SO important to overall health and I'm quite sure it also have impact on dry eyes. Again - I buy these from my favorite fitness shop. I take 1 capsule every day which contains 30 bilion probiotic cultures. In other words it's way more effective than eating a probiotic yogurt. Try to find a good quality one and take it for 3 months to make conclusions.
healthy diet - I used to always skip this point as - yeah yeah whatever - but well... it's important. If you eat unhealthy you will have inflammation in your body. Especially focus on cutting down sugar and carbs in general. Do your research. If you are really desperate just try keto diet. For me it's hard to not eat carbs at all so Im not doing it but from what I've seen it can help with MANY conditions.
environment - as I said I work with computers all day. What helped me - I found a remote job and now I work from home. It has some disadvantages as well but when I used to work in our office I didnt like that there was an A/C and I couldnt set it up as I wanted because there were other colleagues as well. The same with heaters. When Im at home I can set it up any way I want. Another thing that people often dont realize is that if you work with a laptop there is a heat coming from it and it goes straight to your eyes and of course you also blink less when working so it can dry up your eyes quite fast. People with healthy glands can deal with it but not us. I solved this by not using a laptop but desktop PC most of the time and I put this PC on the other side of the room and I use long cables. It would be better to have my PC and my table in different rooms but it's not possible for me. It might sound like too much but I also play videogames and that produces A LOT of heat so in my case this helps.
sleep - of course sleep is super important and if you dont do it right your eyes will feel bad. Of course you should go sleep earlier and sleep longer, you shouldnt stare at any display for 1 hour before sleep and so on. Honestly I've been struggling with this a lot. I go sleep late, I use my phone, my sleep is sometimes bad because I'm a light sleeper and anything can wake me up easily and once I wake up, my eyes feel bad the next day. What helped me was to use earplugs and sleep mask and also I realized that my girlfriend keeps waking me up because she sleep talks and of course she moves around. Sometimes it doesnt really wake me up completely but it still influences my sleep so I decided to sleep in another room which makes it so much better. It also solves snoring complains
I didnt want to make this text so long but here you have it. I hope this helps someone and let me know if you have some ideas or feedback. I totally understand that dry eyes are a terrible condition but guys, stay strong and keep fighting. If you are depressed then trust me, it will get better. Keep experimenting and finding what works for you. You will find a way. Or they will actually invent some treatment which will work for everyone. You never know. Good luck!