prevalence of severe dry eye

[Michael2]

i may only be in my 20s, but ive met alot of people in my life, have seen alot of stories, and travelled alot. ive also worked with medicine and seen alot of bizarre diseases.

but i have never, ever met or even remotely heard of someone young with debilitating severe dry eye until I experienced it myself. im sure theres a dry eye problem...but is it really that common to have 'life-altering' symptoms?

[Lucy]

Michael, you may have met more people (both young and not so young) with life altering dry eye than you realize. People do not tend to talk to strangers about their health problems.

I've been around boards such as this one for 10 years and it's getting more and more common to have young people show up on the boards. That doesn't prove there are "more" of them, for sure. So many new posters tell us that they are just astounded by the number of people suffering with dry eye. good luck Lucy

[moni]

Same here, actually before this I have never heard of anybody having dry eyes. Young or old, not even my parents or grandparents had heard of it. So to go from perfect eyes to excrutiating pain in 3 days is incredibly bizarre.

Haha I am still in denial of how my tears magically stop working right , but oh well the human body is still a mystery.

[Guest]

i may only be in my 20s, but ive met alot of people in my life, have seen alot of stories, and travelled alot. ive also worked with medicine and seen alot of bizarre diseases.

but i have never, ever met or even remotely heard of someone young with debilitating severe dry eye until I experienced it myself. im sure theres a dry eye problem...but is it really that common to have 'life-altering' symptoms?

I don't think it's that common to have insanely severe dry eye in a young person. And I know numerous people who have had LASIK too, and not even THEY have dry eye problems like mine... in fact, they all say their eyes have recovered back to pre-lasik.

In my job, I work at many different store locations... so I work with a LOT of different people. I've never seen anyone using drops constantly like me. When people see ME using drops, they inevitably ask why. When told it's for my dry eyes, those that have it, will always say "Me too!"... but then it turns out that THEIR eyes are only dry if they wear contacts and are perfectly fine as long as they stick with glasses... so again, not like me.

I've never, ever, met anyone who has eyes like mine. Well, except in the waiting room for my cautery procedure yesterday... there was a woman there who looked to be in her 70's or 80's... we were comparing dry-eye stories heehee. She was the first person I'd ever met (other than on these forums) who has problems similar to my own.

Like you, I have no doubt that there are many people out there who have dry eye issues. BUT, I think only a very small percentage of people have crazy severe life-altering dry eye.

All I can say is thank goodness for these forums allowing all of us here with crazy dry eye to find each other for moral support!

[odydnas]

Agreed. I have met TONS of people who have run of the mill regular ole dry eyes, where using some eyedrops and warm compresses alleviates their problems. But life altering dry eye pain like mine? I have yet to meet someone in person like that. People don't like to talk to about their medical problems, but with severre dry eye, I feel like you would be able to spot people like that out because of the constant use of drops, sunglasses, goggles, tiredness, and reluctance to want to do anything.

[Jade]

I have only heard of people with life changing dry eyes through these websites, which are great to exchange information and learn from each other. It would be nice to actually know people in person to have a real life support group that I know would be helpful to me. With the prevalence of LASIK, maybe there will be more and more of us which might be noticed as profitable by the pharmaceutical/medical supply manufacturers to market something that will actually help us.

[littlemermaid]

Dry eye kids - rare or underdiagnosed?

Yes, we are here, parents of severe dry eye children, desperately seeking treatment. Children are under-diagnosed even worse than adults - even if ophth acknowledges dry eye they don't think children get it (child gets reduced sensation on cornea = less burning etc, but more corneal breakdown). You can read about lucky ones who got treated by searching pubmed.gov for the usual keywords + child; occasionally there is happy outcome from eg Ankara, Morocco, Far East, and bless you those ophthalmologists who recognised it.

This article shows how even delay in diagnosis damages vision: Ophthalmology. 2007 Dec;114(12):2271-80. Visual outcome and corneal changes in children with chronic blepharokeratoconjunctivitis. Jones SM, Weinstein JM, Cumberland P, Klein N, Nischal KK. Department of Ophthalmology, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London, United Kingdom. [27 children, age 7 months-15.9 years]

If untreated, dry eye in young children soon leads to severe vascularisation, destruction of cornea. Educate our professionals, please.

[sazy123]

Same here, actually before this I have never heard of anybody having dry eyes. Young or old, not even my parents or grandparents had heard of it. So to go from perfect eyes to excrutiating pain in 3 days is incredibly bizarre.

Haha I am still in denial of how my tears magically stop working right , but oh well the human body is still a mystery.

Inflammation can suddenly stop the tears glands from functioning properly or at all.

Many of us here, experienced severe dry eye overnight, and it is probably due to the onset of inflammtion. My eyes were fine (when i didnt wear contacts), i never had a dry eye symptom, they went bad just like that over night. The inflammtion is chronic and doesnt get better.

[angel1823]

Am young too...

I was 24 before I ever experienced dry eyes. I never had heard of it and never experienced it, and within days I could no longer tolerate contact lenses and was in constant pain.

No one else in my family or in my circle of friends has it. And people tend to look at me funny when I complain of it. "What do you mean your eyes hurt?" they seem to be saying.

And doctors tell me that I'm very young to have such dry eyes, so I suppose that normally this is a problem they see in older people.