Sleeping pills took away my sypmtons of extreme eye discomfort

[Tess]

Hello, my name is Tess and I am new to this site. I wanted to find out if anyone else had experienced the effect I did when I was prescribed Rohypnol sleeping pills by my doctor many years ago and discovered that they took away my symptons of eye sorenes and light sensativity. for many years I used them on an occasional basis if I was going out socially and wanted to be able to enjoy myself (something that was not possible without them due to the high level of artificial light). This was not my imagination and so there must be a reason. Can anyone help? .Unfortunately the Rohypnol is not available any more.

I am so glad I found this site and hope I find something on here to help me.

thank you

Tess

[Rebecca Petris]

That's very interesting - I don't think I've ever heard something like that (usually oral medications cause rather than relieve dry eye). I wonder if part of it was that improved sleep improved your tear film?

[NeedMyEyes]

flunitrazepam

I am not an eye doctor and what I say here is not medical advice, but...

Rohypnol (flunitrazepam) is a benzodiazepine. It activates the GABA receptors. I've never heard of that helping dry eyes, but I guess its possible since it does have some cross reactivity with some of the other receptors in the eye - the alpha, beta, etc. receptors...

Other drugs in its class are (these are US names) Valium (diazepam), lorazepam, temazepam, midazolam.

Actually, I have prescribed temazepam for sleep (and never Rohypnol actually), so it wouldn't surprise your doctor if you asked for temazepam.

**Maybe** it will have the same effect on your dry eyes as Rohypnol, but I really can't say for sure since each drug in the same class varies slightly according to its cross reactivity. But it is an excellent sleep medicine for some patients when used appropriately.

Good Luck!

Not an eye doctor by the way...

[socratese]

thanks to a recent visit to an elite eye doctor and eye care center, my eyes were opened to the greater possibility that a lot of these uncured eye pains are due to neuropathy or as in the case with most unexplained chronic pains in other parts of the body, a confusion in pain signals caused by the periferal nervous system or the brain caused by an unknown trigger either in the area the chronic pain is in or by the brain itself.

Sooo talking about sleeping pills and chronic eye pain..... When dealing with chronic pain i have noticed that there are many pills that would be taken for one thing, usually something that alters something neurologically that either blocks or regulates fuctions, that actually helps with chronic pain as a sort of unlabeled use. take, for instance, Cycloserine. This is labeled for use as a treatment for tuberculosis, BUT it has been found to help with chronic pain, and other neurological related problems such as anxiety disorders.
and also antidepressants are a mainstay in the treatment of many chronic pain conditions — even when depression isn't a factor.

One thing I have heard a lot is, sometimes a factor in chronic pain is part of the brain that sends pain signals or interprets them is for some reason becoming extremely overactive. if you can slow down that overactiveness or block some of those actions or rerout them, or stop via amnesia techniques, you can relieve some of the pain. The more I delve into dry eye pain or general eye pain the more it seems like there is another factor at play in some cases. A factor that involves peripheral and central nervous system ISSUES.

Benzodiazepines act on brain pathways involved with pain perception, but have not been very effective at relieving pain in most cases. Thus, they are not used for such, but in some cases it may actually be effective BECAUSE the drug ALSO reduces activity in brain areas known to be involved in the emotional distress that comes with hurt JUST LIKE the medicine i mentioned above, cycloserine is said to do.

I have been trying cycloserine recently to go along with their pain therapy at the boston foundation for sight, but it has undesireable sideffects. I might see if i can try a benzodiazepine. Thanks for telling us about your experience.

[kanon]

Amazing. I have had the same experience. Temazepam, a benzo sleep aid is the ONLY thing, that I've tried, among a lot of pain medicines, that takes away all the dry eye pain for me. Of course, it is frustrating b/c I can't take it during the day. I am about to see my dr. in one hour, and was researching and came up with this thread (I've been a member here for some months and have had a really hard time with dry eye/MGD pain.). I want to talk to my dr. about the possibility of a different type of benzodiazepine that isn't used at night for sleeping, but could be used during the day. I am very emotional and stressed about my pain. It is so weird, but when I take the temazepam, I can open my eyes without pain, and I and other people, (my mom, husband, who are around me) can literally see that my eyes are more moist when I take the temazepam. Could it be that it relaxes me, makes me less stressed/depressed/emotional about all my pain, my eyes don't hurt for an hour or so before I fall asleep and my eyes actually produce more tears/or correct tears since they aren't in pain and stressed? Who knows. I'll I know is I've tried a lot and temazepam helps me. Too bad it is a med that also really scares me...don't want to be on something like this...but am getting desperate. Any thoughts?

[bakunin]

When my dry eyes symptoms started (burning feeling and photophobia), I thought I was sleeping badly (the symptoms were similar to tohse we have when we don't sleep at night. The onset was after a really bad sleeping night.