21 with never ending dry eye pain

[melissalesley]

5-6 months ago I had a sudden onset of dry eye it has felt like there is something in my right eye on and off for the whole of this time!! It's such a horrible feeling and I have tried every over the counter eye drop, you name it-most were rubbish and not fixing the problem just temporary relief only for the hell to start again a few hours later having to put eye drops in makes me think of my eyes constantly and it has become an obsession, I am constantly looking in mirrors , different mirrors in different places with different lighting with constant thoughts of 'do my eyes look red and blood shot??' 'This is making me look ugly' people my think I'm ill or something wrong with me I feel so stupid for thinking this but only a few weeks ago and even now I have been considering suicide as I've never been good at coping with things and freak out and this has been one of the hardest hurdles I've been through and still going through, I don't know what bothers me most how it looks (red bloodshot eyes) or how it feels I have been to the GP who laughed at me and kept asking 'what the real issue you have here??' And said my eyes are not red and that they are all blood vessels that are meant to be there but I never had vessels that obvious and he ignored all the discomfort I'm having from this! I'm not a pushy person so when he said there's nothing wrong-he did not even get a flash light out to look closely I kind of said ok then I don't have the fight in me any more, this is the only place that has helped reading that I'm not the only one. I went to an optician and he said the insides of my eyelids are very 'rough and bumpy' and that this is grating on my eye surface gave me eye drops they didn't help and told me to go to gp if it's still the same after three days(which I did but he basically said there's nothing but I know my body and I know when something doesn't feel right) Things got so bad I went to the pharmacy after work last Wednesday and since then I have been taking 6 ipruprofen a day this has been the only thing to make the horrible feeling of my eyes go away and I think I'm going to be taking these for a while if people can take this long term for things such a authertitis I figured this is a chronic condition too and I can't live Like this anymore. the mornings are he worst but since I've been taking the medicine I wake up and my eyes are not as red the closet to normal I've been for a very long time

[BarbaraS]

Dear Melissa first of all Iīm really sorry what are you going through. The dry eye battle can be one of the hardest battle at any age, but being so young it can be even harder. I know from my own experience. My dry eye startes at 26, when I dreamed to start living normal life after university, but instead of that I am suffering with dry eye, anything what was normal before is now hard. And I also know how hard is the emotional pain of the eye redness. Your reaction is normal, it is hard when your eyes arenīt any more the way they used to be. However, you need to breath deeply and calm down. At the moment because of all your pain you canīt think racionaly and make wright decisions. You need to know it will get better, you will find your way to cure. First of all, you need to get the right diagnosis from GP. Ask them if you really have dry eye and what type if do you have. We know aqua deficiency and meimboiman gland disfunction. Ask him to do some tests, like Schirmer test (mesure of the tears) and TBUT test (tear break up test - mesure of the lipid phase). Ask him to check functionality of your meimboiman glands (are they open and if the secretions are liquid or thick) and ask them to check your inner eyelids (let them to check also the inner side of the upper lid). Because as you described you can have some irritation on the inner side of the upper eyelid that than feels irritating to your eye everytime you blink. Or maybe it is an allergy. The precise diagnose is crucial, so you can start the wright treatment. Donīt get scared, the wright diagnose will lead you to the way of healing. And tell to your self it will get better and it will. You are emotionally in pain and that is why you can see your eyes to look more red than they really are. I noticed by myself that now I see every vein in my eyes, but before I didnīt notice any of the veins. Then I saw some old pictures and discover that I have that vein even before the dry eye started. So you need to calm down first and stop looking at the mirror at the moment. Try to find GP who is specialised in dry eye treatment or get a second GP opinion. You will find your solution, stop reading scariest stories about dry eye and focus on the triumph stories. Talk to your parents and friend about your fear and ask them to help you get over this. Here on this forum are people who understand what are you going through, so when it will be especially hard leave us a message. Best whishes Barbara

[melissalesley]

Dear Melissa first of all Iīm really sorry what are you going through. The dry eye battle can be one of the hardest battle at any age, but being so young it can be even harder. I know from my own experience. My dry eye startes at 26, when I dreamed to start living normal life after university, but instead of that I am suffering with dry eye, anything what was normal before is now hard. And I also know how hard is the emotional pain of the eye redness. Your reaction is normal, it is hard when your eyes arenīt any more the way they used to be. However, you need to breath deeply and calm down. At the moment because of all your pain you canīt think racionaly and make wright decisions. You need to know it will get better, you will find your way to cure. First of all, you need to get the right diagnosis from GP. Ask them if you really have dry eye and what type if do you have. We know aqua deficiency and meimboiman gland disfunction. Ask him to do some tests, like Schirmer test (mesure of the tears) and TBUT test (tear break up test - mesure of the lipid phase). Ask him to check functionality of your meimboiman glands (are they open and if the secretions are liquid or thick) and ask them to check your inner eyelids (let them to check also the inner side of the upper lid). Because as you described you can have some irritation on the inner side of the upper eyelid that than feels irritating to your eye everytime you blink. Or maybe it is an allergy. The precise diagnose is crucial, so you can start the wright treatment. Donīt get scared, the wright diagnose will lead you to the way of healing. And tell to your self it will get better and it will. You are emotionally in pain and that is why you can see your eyes to look more red than they really are. I noticed by myself that now I see every vein in my eyes, but before I didnīt notice any of the veins. Then I saw some old pictures and discover that I have that vein even before the dry eye started. So you need to calm down first and stop looking at the mirror at the moment. Try to find GP who is specialised in dry eye treatment or get a second GP opinion. You will find your solution, stop reading scariest stories about dry eye and focus on the triumph stories. Talk to your parents and friend about your fear and ask them to help you get over this. Here on this forum are people who understand what are you going through, so when it will be especially hard leave us a message. Best whishes Barbara

Thank you so much for replying Barbara, I have felt so alone since this all started like I'm screaming on the inside but I still have to pretend to feel ok and normal and go to work and smile to pay my bills even though Inside I'm falling to bits. How have you been able to deal with this? Do you get irritation around the clock?? Mine hasn't gone away the whole of the past 6 months, I have made another optician appointment at a place near my work in London (the first one I saw was in a small town where I live so I'm hoping this one will have more experience) and I have private medical insurance with my job so I'm also going to ask for a referal letter to an eye doctor from this optician to hopefully get a better diagnosis, it's scary how bad some doctors can be!! Especially when the get paid so much, have a nice evening X

[BarbaraS]

Hey! Sorry I just noticed that in the previous post I used the abbreviations GP, what I wanted to say is to search for a ophthalmologist opinion. Optician appointment can be helpful too, but ophthalmologist have mor medical underground and are more specialised for diagnosing advanced conditions. About me, yes sadly I do have irritation around the clock and I was severely depressed because od that and am still not doing fine, but better than in the past 6 months. My condition started a year ago and in this year I spend a lot of time for searching answers and visiting ophthalmologist to get a proper diagnose and to find a cure. The worst thing for me it was the believing that it will always stay this way. But you donīt allow your mind to trick you to think like that. It will not be always like that and we will find a solution to live as normal as possible. We have to have hope. Have a nice evening too!

[melissalesley]

Hey! Sorry I just noticed that in the previous post I used the abbreviations GP, what I wanted to say is to search for a ophthalmologist opinion. Optician appointment can be helpful too, but ophthalmologist have mor medical underground and are more specialised for diagnosing advanced conditions. About me, yes sadly I do have irritation around the clock and I was severely depressed because od that and am still not doing fine, but better than in the past 6 months. My condition started a year ago and in this year I spend a lot of time for searching answers and visiting ophthalmologist to get a proper diagnose and to find a cure. The worst thing for me it was the believing that it will always stay this way. But you donīt allow your mind to trick you to think like that. It will not be always like that and we will find a solution to live as normal as possible. We have to have hope. Have a nice evening too!

That's so true anything can change because look we never had this before and then I came out the blue, so hopefully it will go away at some point soon too!! It could just be hormonal changes I'm not sure my personality has settled a lot and I don't feel like a teen anymore at all so it could be that transition I'm not sure, I will go ophthalmologist definitely for a proper opinion with my insurance I need a referral first though so I'm going to beg this optician to write me one I need it!! I couldn't sleep again last night because of the constant feeling of something being in my eye and the grating feeling in the corners of my eyelid and it's nothing sitting 8 hours at a computer for work now is going to help