This is for the white in your eyes

[Scandinavian Dries]

Hi there! You probably don't know me (yet), but I'd like to thank you, as a part of the DryEyeZone community. Having had laser-induced dry eyes for about 10 months now, I've often returned to this forum time and again, to search for hope(!), to search for tips, pain management, relief, and tip and advice as to what the h*ll is going on with my precious eyes =)

I've written my complete story elsewhere on these forums, you can see it here. I apologise beforehand for the length.

Well, I thought it was time for me to stop lurking and start participating. I'm a 27 year old Danish guy living in Norway, and my name is Stephen. Pleased to "meet" you all =)

[Jenn1]

Hi SD,

Has your laser eye surgery corrected your vision significantly or not much and just given you dry eyes?

[Scandinavian Dries]

Hi Jenn1,

Well, I was about -2.25 and -1.75 prior to surgery, and some minor astigmatism.

Now I'm -0.5 on one eye, with slight astigmatism. Laser doc keeps saying it's due to "accomodation spasm" and not real refractive error per se. I don't know, all I know is that that eye still feels nearsighted. The other eye is without any refractive error (after two surgeries, the first one left me with about -1.00), but it's only been about 4 months since the last treatment (PRK surface treatment), so I still have a lot of astigmatism in that eye, i.e. lots of "ghosting" and double images. So it's still somewhat unsure how good that eye will eventually get. Right now I feel that my laser surgery corrected my vision some, but definitely not significantly. Once my last eye starts settling with regards to the astigmatism, I'll definitely go get some glasses, 'cause as it is now, I feel my vision is almost as bad as before the surgery.

So yeah, basically my surgery has not corrected much of my visual problem, and left me with dry eyes instead. I'd cry if I could =)

[Jenn1]

I can sympathise with your current mood. Its shocking how important side effects such as dry eye syndrome are witheld from patients undergoing laser and other surgeries as well as many drug medication treatments, and one would think that protecting and preserving the human sight would be one of the top concerns for doctors and other professionals.

Just reading today about women who were given faulty breast implants and them wanting to sue as its damaged their health, but what gives others the right to ruin someone elses eyes without them being informed of all the consequences of their decision? And in your particular case, with laser eye surgery, i would be fuming!

I do however take comfort in knowing that others are much worse off and that things could be a lot worse. What medications are you using if any? I have been using natural tear drops and lacri lube at night and sometimes chloramphenicol?

[Scandinavian Dries]

Thank you for your sympathy. I must admit that I am fuming quite a bit, especially 'cause what I experience now is light years away from what I had imagined. They told me this was minor surgery with little chance of any complication, that any side effects would be temporary, and everywhere in the clininc you saw these pictures of smiling, happy, seeing people. If I had known I'd be only giving a slight improvement in my visual quality, that I could no longer werar lenses (which I could before, but can't now), and that I would be so miserable due to tired, aching, sore eyes all the time - well I'd of course never had done this!

But since the clinic didn't do any major damage to my eyes, but "only" induced me with dry eye syndrome, I doubt there's much I can do legally, without having to resort to a private lawsuit, which I'd rather not. The frustration of not being able to do something about this mess is the killing part, though.

Right now I'm waiting for my appointment at the independent eye doc for proper diagnosis and treatment. At the laser clinic they didn't do any tear testing, break up time, gland functioning or anything at all, so I have no idea what's really at the core of my problem. I'm going to ask for some medical treatments as well, at least those that are available to me here.

Right now I'm only using Vit-A Pos, a greasy gel with Vitamin A, which seems to have helped some, though definitely not completely. I've used 3-4 different eye drops, but they only seem to grant me a temporary relief for 30-60 seconds, so that's not really an option. I've yet to find any drop that gives me any relief for more than a minute.
I can see that Chloramphenicol is an antibiotic, do you have infection og inflammation as your eye problem? I'm beginning to think that inflammation might play a large part in my condition, so I'll ask for some steroid/anti-inflammatory stuff, since Restasis isn't approved as a drug here in Norway.

[Jenn1]

Yes, chloramphenicol definitely helps with inflammation, but as you say, its not for daily or long term use. Regarding lawsuits, I think all one can really do is write a formal complaint, bring the issue to the attention of ones member of parliament and/or start a petition and gaining as many supportive signatures from members of the public to try and force drug or cosmetic companies to better inform their customers of the long term risks and if you are lucky then maybe your government MP may bring up the issue directly to be discussed by the government and their health department.