HELP!! Dry eyes at 24 and needing help!

[Loldo]

I have had trouble with dry eyes for around 4 months now. I believe it began with an allergic/irritation reaction to an apartment I used to stay in from time to time. To begin with I would get sore, dry eyes after a few hours in the apartment, which would get back to normal gradually over 2 days of being back in my own apartment. This persisted for around one month.

Then I visited the apartment a lot for around a week, and had dry eyes the whole time. Following that I moved to another city and haven't visited the apartment once since, however my eyes have never got back to normal. I assume the initial cause was an allergic reaction however I did not have red eyes or swelling and also no itching (all symptoms I know are associated with allergic reactions) only dryness. Could this be an allergy? Also why are my eyes still dry months after leaving the apartment which caused the reaction??

Currently i use preservative free drops almost ever 20 minutes and manage to control the symptoms most of the time, however if I am without drops for a few hours or in a very hot dry environment I end up in severe pain.

I was wondering if anyone has experienced something similar/has any ideas as to what this could be? I have no history of allergies and am only 24 years old. Been researching for a while and tried many allergy drops and steroids to little/no avail.

I have good days and bad days, as I imagine many of you do too but I am worried this could be a permanent condition and would do anything to get back to normal (or thereabouts...)

Thanks to anyone who can help!

[socratese]

maybe your corneal nerve got damaged from an allergen/chemical in the air at your apartment or from the dry air there. or whatever it was triggered an inflammatory response in your eyelids that somehow never got turned off- which happens with chronic inflammation.

#1 were you going through a lot of stress or was there anything else going on that would have weakened your immune system or perhaps caused it to malfunction? E.G. no food lack of sleep, mental or physical stress, etc.. ?

#2 do you have a history of any eye injuries that could have messed up nerves on the cornea or did you have any skin problems on the face that could have spread to the eyelids? like rosacea.


for me I was going through a lot of stress- I had a severe flare up of some sort on my face a few months before my eye problems started, and I was going through a lot of stress at work and home. I think those were my triggers. Also lots of computer use exposed my cornea and its nerves to become damaged since I blink less when playing computer games.

[Súil Eile]

It might have been the heating/ air-conditioning system in that apartment drying your eyes out. That would explain a lack swelling and itching. A friend of mine moved into a new apartment recently and I have to bring a bucket of eyes drops every time I go over as the air is so drying and the heating system is horrible. Beautiful apartment...but terrible for dry eyes!

That kind of environment can also be the catalyst that pushes mild, unnoticeable dry eye into the category of moderate/ severe.