Hello and thanks

[adienich]

I already posted once in the general area, but I never did introduce myself. I'm happy to have found this website, I've learned so much by reading these posts. I'm still relatively new to dry eye, only been suffering from it for a bit over a year. It appeared quite suddenly and I don't really know why.

I guess my problem isn't really as severe as what most of you have here. I wish you all a lot of strength in dealing with all this. I can only imagine what you must be going through.

I mostly have problems with my eyes towards the evening and then in the morning as I try to open my eyes. Drops don't make the situation significantly better, but at least I can open my eyes in the morning without too much pain. I have to read and use the computer a lot and towards the evening I often experience a general sense of dryness which also makes my vision slightly blurred.

Because so far I've been able to cope with OTC drops, I haven't really sought a diagnosis either. When I saw an eye doctor to get a prescription for glasses in the spring, she did see that there were dry areas in my eyes and wrote a prescription for drops (but those were simply the same drops I'd been using before, in my case a prescription meant I could buy them at a lower price, and luckily she also recommended using drops in single vials, as I've now learned about the dangers of BAC). But she didn't really seem interested in exploring the cause of dryness as I wasn't really pushing for it either.

I'm reluctant to start seeking for a diagnosis as long as I can cope because it does seem to be difficult to find answers, and knowing myself, uncertainty about health issues tends to make me anxious so I'd rather not delve too deeply into this if I don't have to. I don't know, perhaps getting a diagnosis would help though?

Anyway, I really just wanted to say thanks for this website and to express my support to you all. I've found lots of helpful information here. I just bought a lid cleaning product and that seems to make a lot of difference in how my eyes feel. There's usually some yellow mucus in my eyes towards the evening and in the morning so it really helps to get rid of that. So much I wouldn't know without this forum.

[adienich]

I find it interesting how much better the lid cleaning seems to make me feel. I always wake up in the morning with grittiness and some pain and dryness but the cleaning seems to make the grittiness much less noticeable. Cleaning in the evening and then applying eye drops seems to make waking up a bit easier too. Now that I've been reading about this, it seems eyelid cleaning is mostly advised in the case of blepharitis - so now I'm starting to wonder if this might be my problem. I don't know much about it though and I'm somewhat reluctant to look for the information because reading health related information on the internet is not always such a good idea (at least for me).

But as far as I understand blepharitis relates to inflammation and this reminds me of a few occasions last fall/winter when I would get weird inflammation reactions that would last a couple of days and then go away. The left eye which was mostly affected was watery and felt sore and itchy, with foreign body sensation too. It even looked like there was something wrong with my lower eyelid and there's a spot that still looks somewhat weird if you look at it closely even though it doesn't feel bad right now. I never did see a doctor about these occasions because I've never been good at visiting doctors. I guess self-diagnosing isn't a good idea either, though...