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Hi, new to the forum tonight and some basic start questions. I've searched the forum for some of the answers, but ironically, my eyes are so bad tonight I must give up for awhile.
I am a medical provider myself. I've spent my career in headache treatment and own a headache treatment center now. I'm use to being on the other end of the ophthalmoscope. I've had dry eyes (now what I would call mild to moderate) for many years. I had plugs and did use Restatis for awhile, which brought me back to near normal. Then, almost overnight, two years ago my eyes became much worse (and only God knows why). I've followed with my ophthalmologist since. My plugs had come out and he replaced them. Made no difference. Then I went back on Restatis. After about two months I thought I was 40% better, but now, after 10 months, I feel I'm back at square one.
My best treatment is protecting my eyes from the with with X Wiley sunglasses and glacier glasses (with clear lenses) which I wear inside and I look like a dork. However, I'm only myopic and can't wear my glasses for my close up work (like working on the lap top all day doing patient charting).
So, my ophthalmologist is a nice guy but his attitude is that it is a bad disease and nothing helps it. He thinks I just have to live with it. When I bring up ideas such as sclearal lens, he chuckles and says that is for really severe cases.
He has never done any objective measurements of my tears as he says that doesn't make any difference so I don't know how he knows my are not severe. However, and many of you can relate to this, my dry eyes are the number one problem in my life. Most mornings, despite putting ointment in my eyes at night, I wake up with my lid stuck to my cornea and it hurts like hell when I open my eye. I'm sure I've abraded my cornea some mornings because that eye will water like crazy all day.
I put the gel in my eyes about every 30 minutes all day long. With all of these measures I am still very uncomfortable.
So, sclearal lens sound very good to me. I would love to have my cornea covered with something wet all day. However, after spending hours on line trying to read about them I still can't find anyone in our region (Seattle) who does them. And, I understand that they cost about $5,000 each and worse for me, requires about 10 days to 2 weeks to be fitted. My medical practice would about go bankrupt if I closed our doors for that duration for me to go and get help. So, how do you find someone close by to consider it? Are the sclearal lens also corrective for myopia? My dream would be a sclearal lens that is corrective and bifocal . . . do those exist?
I've tried to read about Lipiflow and a Seattle TV news show did a piece on it. But it sounds flaky to me. Does it work? Okay, I must rest my eyes but any direction would be helpful.
I am a medical provider myself. I've spent my career in headache treatment and own a headache treatment center now. I'm use to being on the other end of the ophthalmoscope. I've had dry eyes (now what I would call mild to moderate) for many years. I had plugs and did use Restatis for awhile, which brought me back to near normal. Then, almost overnight, two years ago my eyes became much worse (and only God knows why). I've followed with my ophthalmologist since. My plugs had come out and he replaced them. Made no difference. Then I went back on Restatis. After about two months I thought I was 40% better, but now, after 10 months, I feel I'm back at square one.
My best treatment is protecting my eyes from the with with X Wiley sunglasses and glacier glasses (with clear lenses) which I wear inside and I look like a dork. However, I'm only myopic and can't wear my glasses for my close up work (like working on the lap top all day doing patient charting).
So, my ophthalmologist is a nice guy but his attitude is that it is a bad disease and nothing helps it. He thinks I just have to live with it. When I bring up ideas such as sclearal lens, he chuckles and says that is for really severe cases.
He has never done any objective measurements of my tears as he says that doesn't make any difference so I don't know how he knows my are not severe. However, and many of you can relate to this, my dry eyes are the number one problem in my life. Most mornings, despite putting ointment in my eyes at night, I wake up with my lid stuck to my cornea and it hurts like hell when I open my eye. I'm sure I've abraded my cornea some mornings because that eye will water like crazy all day.
I put the gel in my eyes about every 30 minutes all day long. With all of these measures I am still very uncomfortable.
So, sclearal lens sound very good to me. I would love to have my cornea covered with something wet all day. However, after spending hours on line trying to read about them I still can't find anyone in our region (Seattle) who does them. And, I understand that they cost about $5,000 each and worse for me, requires about 10 days to 2 weeks to be fitted. My medical practice would about go bankrupt if I closed our doors for that duration for me to go and get help. So, how do you find someone close by to consider it? Are the sclearal lens also corrective for myopia? My dream would be a sclearal lens that is corrective and bifocal . . . do those exist?
I've tried to read about Lipiflow and a Seattle TV news show did a piece on it. But it sounds flaky to me. Does it work? Okay, I must rest my eyes but any direction would be helpful.