Long Term management of dry eyes/corneal ulcers/abrasions

[Lottieseyes]

Hi all,

I have often used this site to research hints and tips for my eye problems and have found it very useful.

I began suffering with eye problems in my teens, and was often off school with corneal ulcers.

Then the problem cleared up until about 3 years ago (I am 26 now). 3 years ago I found myself at Eye Casualty with sever pains/ blurred vision/ light sensitivity etc, since then I have had problems on and off. Until this year I would have severe pain and photophobia for 1-2 weeks and would then get better.

However, my problems have been ongoing now (with very little relief) since May of this year. I am currently in my 5th week off sick from work and am extremely frustrated. I thoroughly enjoy my job, however it is very stressful and involves hours of computer work and hours of driving (often 4-5 hours driving in one day) so I simply cannot do it at the moment.

I am due to see the corneal specialist tomorrow for a follow up after a thorough debridement (she used 3 blades with anasthetic drops but the pain after they had worn off was horrendous). I am currently on steroid drops (6 times a day) and chlorophenicol ointment (now twice a day) and doxycycline 100ml every day.

I have tried an array of drops over the years and various painkillers. My condition has been called lots of things: RCE, corneal ulcers, epithileum defect, blepharitis, allergic eye disease, allergic conjuncitivitis etc etc. So I still do not know what I am dealing with (a private doctor said I was suffering from 2-3 different conditions).


At present the pain has gone, but I have these very uncomfortable twinges every so often, and worry that the condition is flaring up again.

Has anyone had similar problems and still had a successful career? I really do not want to sacrifice my career for my eye problems, but as I am now in my 5th months of continuous problems I am not hopeful.

Any help or advice would be very much appreciated.

Thank you

[pinksummer]

hi I'm from Italy and been diagnosed with cheratokonjunctivitis sicca, limbial superior conjunktivitis and meibomian gland dysfunction. I have 0 mm schirmer and started with a BUT of 3 sec. This is my third year and I can just tell you what worked out for me. I was under steroids for several months at the beginning and things just went worse and worse until I said no I won't take them any more. My eye specialist insisted but I just said no: i listened to my body and knew they were killing me, i had the more erosions when under steroids than ever. I tried a lot of different drops and they just didnt work, or maybe they worked for a week and then it all started again. So out of desperation I started to use only saline solution 0,9 per cent the Nivea monodose for babies at the supermarket, I would flush 100 times a day or more and even if much was not happening I FELT it was the right thing to do. I went on with this and putting a thick drop of systane ultra before sleeping and another if I woke up in the middle of the night after having flushed with saline and waited a few minutes and eventually the situation improved and staying in the office was not like hell all the time (most of the time but not all). After a while I traid to flush saline after a very hot compress I would flush and blink very quickly and my glands started to discharge white stuff like it was snowing in my eyes. Thinks started to go a little better. I'm doing this 2 or 3 times a day and now I can do things which were unbelievable some months ago like going out for dinner or working at the computer. Hope this can help. I guess most of the problem lies in the meibomian glands, I always have been conscious of this in my heart but it is difficult to make doctors trust what you try to teach them. First they have no idea of how bad your symptons are, then until maybe the last workshop of MGD, a few of them barely suspected there was a correlation between acqueous deficit and MGD