READ THIS before posting in the "Find a..." forum

[Rebecca Petris]

Hi all,

Doing a little forum housekeeping tonight and decided it's high time to have an easier way to search for doctors who do specialized treatments.

DOCTORS, you are very welcome to let us know here about specialized dry eye services you offer including treatments such as those mentioned above or diagnostics not routinely available from most corneal specialists or optometrists specializing in dry eye. Posts should be brief and informational (no claims or testimonials please).

PHARMACISTS, please post here any specialized dry eye products you are compounding e.g. autologous serum, preservative free drops, high-concentration cyclosporine, etc.

PATIENTS, you are welcome to post here names of doctors who they know to be currently providing specialized services such as:

- Arranging for production of autologous serum eyedrops
- Performing IPL
- Prescribing unusual compounded treatments such as DHEA drops, testosterone creams, etc.
- Fitting scleral lenses (but only if they have experience doing so specifically for dry eye as a primary indication)
- Dr. ******'s probing thingy
- Whatever other latest-&-greatest dry eye treatments are kicking around.

Patients, if you post here, be diligent and thorough in confirming your information and describing what is offered, so that others don't waste time trying to track dead-end leads. If you have any doubts as to whether the doctor would want his/her name posted in this way, don't. To be safe, ask them. If it's a doctor with whom you have an ongoing relationship and they stop offering the service you posted about, please update the posting.

EVERYBODY, for ease of use, please make sure to include TREATMENT and LOCATION in the SUBJECT LINE of your post.

[liz56]

Hi, Rebecca.

That sounds like a good idea.

I have a special request. Do you think it would be possible to add a Sticky in the new forum that addresses ways to talk to our doctors, like how to describe our symptoms, how to share things that we learn by talking to others or researching on our own in a respectful way, how long we should wait before contacting them if treatments do not seem to work, and things like that. I notice that those issues come up a lot, and it would be helpful to have a central location to access them, because our cases are all so unique, and some of us have pretty rare problems, making communication with our doctors something that we need preparation to do sometimes.

Thanks for considering it!

--Liz