New to site-Mellie

[Mellie]

Finding this site has been a great resource. It also made me realize again that my situation could be much worse after reading other people's stories! I have severe chronic dry eye due to radiation therapy..it damaged my tear ducts to the point they don't function at all now. I had to stop working since I am no longer able to stare at a computer screen for 12 hours a day, let alone read regular print. I use ointment at night and gel artificial tears several times an hour. I avoid ceiling fans, air vents, wind, smoke and direct bright sunlight. I cannot drive at night. On a good day I can read large print books in short spurts, but I normally listen to audio books now. I'm sure you all can understand about the need to control your environment.....and sometimes being out in public is just plain miserable! I cannot imagine having to wear goggles all the time as some of you do..I get annoyed enough having to wear sunglasses as much as I do. I have at least progressed from having almost constant blurry vision to only when I overwork my eyes. And I can wear my regular prescription sunglasses instead of the huge wrap arounds now. It seems that the degree of lubrication and rest I'm giving my eyes is helping to some extent at least. It's still frustrating in many ways, but I'm fortunate to have a great husband.... a wonderful man who has stood by me thru my cancer diagnosis and all the surgeries and radiation and having to stop working-and this has all been within the last 10 months. And he still wanted to marry me last week! Anyway, this seems like a great site for support and information and I hope we can all help each other, even if it's just to listen. I haven't seen any posts from others who have dry eye due to the same cause I have, but I'm willing to talk with anyone. We can all sympathize at least.

[Rebecca Petris]

Hi Mellie,

Welcome to Dry Eye Talk! Glad you found us!

There are 4 registered users who indicated they have dry eye from radiation, not sure how recently any of them has been here. You've obviously been through a lot, and I'm sorry to hear your vision is so much affected. It sounds like in a large measure you're learning to adapt and cope very quickly even though it's obviously dramatically affected your life.

Anyway, good to have you here and thanks for posting!