hope this will help someone.

[robinlynnekay whetton]

I am a 71 year old woman living in australia. I was diagnosed 40 years ago with Sjogrens Syndrome. This causes me to have severe dry eyes and throat. it has now gone into my chest. I need to use artificial tears several times a day, plus Zaditen which is a good help too. My main problem is the filaments in the eyes. no matter how hard I try to remove them, it is quite impossible. Sometimes however I am lucky and fluke pulling one out with my fingers, which I know is probably a huge NO NO. but what else can you do?
robin

[tearless2]

Hi, Nice to meet you and welcome to the forum!

Do you take restasis? If so, has it helped? How about plaquenil? I have never heard of zaditen.

[PAllen]

I used to get filaments about once a week. Nasty little things. Seems like a ride in the car (windows up and no heat or air conditioning) would cause one. Restasis is supposed to help disolve them, I think. The best thing for me was to put Refresh PM or some other nighttime ointment in my eyes and go to sleep. I think they either would disolve or the ointment helped get them to detach. I'm wearing bandage contact lenses right now, which are supposed to help, too. In the 3 weeks I've been wearing the lenses, I haven't gotten a filament.

Good luck, Robin, and welcome.

[jenny2008]

what is a filament in the eye???

[PAllen]

It's a string of material like mucus that attaches to your eye. The filament itself doesn't hurt (at least not me), but when you blink, it irritates the eye lid. They dissolve or detach on their own, but the longer they're there, the more the lid hurts.

[jenny2008]

well i guess i have hadthose for years. i usually take a q tip and put drops on it and get it out..

[giraffes1703]

cyclosporan drops can help with this but need to be made up in a hospital pharmacy.

[farmgirl]

I don't have this problem (thank you God) but I think it may be the same thing that was being discussed in this thread

http://www.dryeyezone.com/talk/showt...ome&highlight=