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Hello everyone, this is my first post of this board and I have to say I’m thrilled to have found this place. There is not a lot of specific information about dry eye on the internet, and it’s great we have a place to come together and exchange information.
I’d like to just give you all my background with chronic dry eye and if anyone has any suggestions for me, as far what direction to go, I would greatly appreciate it!
Age: 36
Gender: male
Occupation: Computer work 8-10 hours per day
BACKGROUND:
-2004 - Experimented with contact lenses, I could not wear them very long without experiencing a lot of dryness and discomfort, so I discontinued use and switched back to eye glasses.
- 2006 - I started wearing soft contact lenses again. When I started out, they were fairly comfortable to wear for a couple of weeks. After that, the amount of time I could wear them gradually decreased every week until eventually they were just too uncomfortable to wear. My eyes were very dry and irritated with them. It got to the point that I went back to my ophthalmologist about the eye irritation and dryness. This started my 5 years of misery battling Chronic Dry Eye.
DOCTOR VISITS:
2007 – Dr. Gordon Miller, Aventura, FL (several visits)
- Diagnosis:
- Giant Papillary Conjunctivitis. Probably from contact lens wear.
(The GPC was cleared up)
- Chronic Dry eye
- Dry Eye Treatment:
- Stop contact lens wear.
- Try various artificial tears eye drops for dryness.
- Change blinking habits to blink more
- Omega 3 fish oil
- Restasis 2x day
Early 2008 - Dr. Kendall Donaldson, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Miami, FL (two visits)
- Diagnosis: Dry eye (confirmed with Shirmer’s test)
- Treatment:
- Restasis continue 2x day
- Pataday 1x a day (said eyes have an allergic look to them).
- Artificial tears continue
- Genteal Gel at night
- Omega 3 tablets.
- Warm compresses 2x day (1 minute per eye)
- Try Dissolvable punctal plug in right eye. (actually made things worse)
Late 2008: - Dr. Victor Perez, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Miami, FL
(Chronic Dry eye, Dry eye research is one of his
specialties).
- Diagnosis: - This is basically what he said: “Most people with ‘severe’ dry eye have very obvious ocular surface irritation, problem that they can see with their instruments. BUT, for some people, people in my category, it is not as obvious under their instruments. He ‘knows’ the symptoms I experience are real, they just don’t know why.”
- Treatment: - Try Autologous Serum drops. (These are tears that are prepared from my own blood serum). 4 drops per day in each eye. He said “For people in my category, the serum drops are a 50/50 chance of working. Versus people that have extremely dry eye, they normally work 80-90% of the time”.
2009: -Dr. Christopher Gelston, Kantor Eye Institute, Sarasota, FL
- Diagnosis:
-Young for dry eye.
-Shirmer’s test ( 7 and 9 out of 15)
- eye’s look allergic (3rd doctor to say that to me).
* He also had me do a complete workup by a local
Rheumatologist for the possibility of Syogren’s
Syndrome. My tests came back negative.
- Treatment:
- Pataday try again.
- Restasis continue 2x day
- Doesn’t think moist compresses would help my
situation. He doesn't think I have a meibomian
gland problem.
- can try the moisture chamber goggles
- try flax seed oil (2000mg 2x day) (give it 4-6
weeks. ( I had previously tried Fish oil capsules
and BioTears without any success. But he said
the flax seed oil works differently and a lot of
patients have success on it.)
OTHER:
- Took Accutane at age 17 for about a year.
- Environmental allergy sufferer. Took immunotherapy allergy shots for about three years up until a few months ago.
WHERE I STAND TODAY:
What has helped:
- Preservative free artificial tears (5-8 doses per day) I’ve tried several brands, but Alcon ‘Naturale Free’ seem to be the most cost effective.
(The artificial tears take the edge off, but don't solve the problem by any means)
- Restasis - I really don’t think this has helped me very much after four years of use. MAYBE slightly. Certainly not enough to justify the cost. I stopped taking it a couple of weeks ago.
- Limiting air conditioning as much as I can.
- Making sure I get 8 hours of sleep.
Things I have not tried yet: *Everything else mentioned in my above visits I tried without success. (Even the Autologous Serum drops).
- Moisture Chamber goggles.
- Flax seed oil. (I’m torn with this one, as there are four studies showing correlation between flax seed oil and an increase risk of prostate cancer).
- I am trying to blink more as my first doctor recommended (Hard to remember!).
- Dr. Gelsten said the next thing to try would either be low-dose Doxycycline
or a product called ‘Tylenol in a bottle’ (might also be known as Zybron, but I’m not sure about the spelling of that).
- Drinking more water everyday "consistently".
Words can’t express how frustrating this experience has been these past five years, and I’m really not sure where to go from here on this. I recently discovered a couple of doctors in Tampa, FL who seems to specialize in Dry Eye. Dr. Steven ****** and Dr. Lange. I can’t afford to see either of them right now, but I am going to order Dr. ******’s book and start reading Dr. Lange’s information he posted on this forum. I’ll probably give the moisture chamber goggles a try next week.
If anyone has any advice for me, I’d love to hear it. Thanks for taking the time to read my long post!
I’d like to just give you all my background with chronic dry eye and if anyone has any suggestions for me, as far what direction to go, I would greatly appreciate it!
Age: 36
Gender: male
Occupation: Computer work 8-10 hours per day
BACKGROUND:
-2004 - Experimented with contact lenses, I could not wear them very long without experiencing a lot of dryness and discomfort, so I discontinued use and switched back to eye glasses.
- 2006 - I started wearing soft contact lenses again. When I started out, they were fairly comfortable to wear for a couple of weeks. After that, the amount of time I could wear them gradually decreased every week until eventually they were just too uncomfortable to wear. My eyes were very dry and irritated with them. It got to the point that I went back to my ophthalmologist about the eye irritation and dryness. This started my 5 years of misery battling Chronic Dry Eye.
DOCTOR VISITS:
2007 – Dr. Gordon Miller, Aventura, FL (several visits)
- Diagnosis:
- Giant Papillary Conjunctivitis. Probably from contact lens wear.
(The GPC was cleared up)
- Chronic Dry eye
- Dry Eye Treatment:
- Stop contact lens wear.
- Try various artificial tears eye drops for dryness.
- Change blinking habits to blink more
- Omega 3 fish oil
- Restasis 2x day
Early 2008 - Dr. Kendall Donaldson, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Miami, FL (two visits)
- Diagnosis: Dry eye (confirmed with Shirmer’s test)
- Treatment:
- Restasis continue 2x day
- Pataday 1x a day (said eyes have an allergic look to them).
- Artificial tears continue
- Genteal Gel at night
- Omega 3 tablets.
- Warm compresses 2x day (1 minute per eye)
- Try Dissolvable punctal plug in right eye. (actually made things worse)
Late 2008: - Dr. Victor Perez, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Miami, FL
(Chronic Dry eye, Dry eye research is one of his
specialties).
- Diagnosis: - This is basically what he said: “Most people with ‘severe’ dry eye have very obvious ocular surface irritation, problem that they can see with their instruments. BUT, for some people, people in my category, it is not as obvious under their instruments. He ‘knows’ the symptoms I experience are real, they just don’t know why.”
- Treatment: - Try Autologous Serum drops. (These are tears that are prepared from my own blood serum). 4 drops per day in each eye. He said “For people in my category, the serum drops are a 50/50 chance of working. Versus people that have extremely dry eye, they normally work 80-90% of the time”.
2009: -Dr. Christopher Gelston, Kantor Eye Institute, Sarasota, FL
- Diagnosis:
-Young for dry eye.
-Shirmer’s test ( 7 and 9 out of 15)
- eye’s look allergic (3rd doctor to say that to me).
* He also had me do a complete workup by a local
Rheumatologist for the possibility of Syogren’s
Syndrome. My tests came back negative.
- Treatment:
- Pataday try again.
- Restasis continue 2x day
- Doesn’t think moist compresses would help my
situation. He doesn't think I have a meibomian
gland problem.
- can try the moisture chamber goggles
- try flax seed oil (2000mg 2x day) (give it 4-6
weeks. ( I had previously tried Fish oil capsules
and BioTears without any success. But he said
the flax seed oil works differently and a lot of
patients have success on it.)
OTHER:
- Took Accutane at age 17 for about a year.
- Environmental allergy sufferer. Took immunotherapy allergy shots for about three years up until a few months ago.
WHERE I STAND TODAY:
What has helped:
- Preservative free artificial tears (5-8 doses per day) I’ve tried several brands, but Alcon ‘Naturale Free’ seem to be the most cost effective.
(The artificial tears take the edge off, but don't solve the problem by any means)
- Restasis - I really don’t think this has helped me very much after four years of use. MAYBE slightly. Certainly not enough to justify the cost. I stopped taking it a couple of weeks ago.
- Limiting air conditioning as much as I can.
- Making sure I get 8 hours of sleep.
Things I have not tried yet: *Everything else mentioned in my above visits I tried without success. (Even the Autologous Serum drops).
- Moisture Chamber goggles.
- Flax seed oil. (I’m torn with this one, as there are four studies showing correlation between flax seed oil and an increase risk of prostate cancer).
- I am trying to blink more as my first doctor recommended (Hard to remember!).
- Dr. Gelsten said the next thing to try would either be low-dose Doxycycline
or a product called ‘Tylenol in a bottle’ (might also be known as Zybron, but I’m not sure about the spelling of that).
- Drinking more water everyday "consistently".
Words can’t express how frustrating this experience has been these past five years, and I’m really not sure where to go from here on this. I recently discovered a couple of doctors in Tampa, FL who seems to specialize in Dry Eye. Dr. Steven ****** and Dr. Lange. I can’t afford to see either of them right now, but I am going to order Dr. ******’s book and start reading Dr. Lange’s information he posted on this forum. I’ll probably give the moisture chamber goggles a try next week.
If anyone has any advice for me, I’d love to hear it. Thanks for taking the time to read my long post!
. I use a sock for the rice. Socks are just the right shape to lay over the eyes. I use a fairly lightweight sock, don't really know if the weight matters though. I use plain rice, the cheapest I find. Works great.
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