Hello! Introducing myself.. hormone-related DES

[kimmy25]

Hello everyone! My name is Christine and I'd like to introduce myself here.

I am 24 years old living in Atlanta and started experiencing dry eyes in February 2017, almost exactly 1 month after stopping Yaz birth control. It happened overnight, i woke up and had difficulty with contact lenses. I thought it was just irritated eyes or something in my eye until i noticed it everyday even when I changed my bi-weekly Acuvue Oasys out for a new pair. My right eye is worse than my left and I was diagnosed with blepharitis (which i dont think i have) and GPC.

My eyes are currently bone dry and I have been on Bepreve, Lotemax, and had permanent punctal plugs with no improvement. Now I use Bausch and Lomb eye drops along with Systane Balance and Genteal severe dry eye gel drops on occasion. I have never had a Schirmers test or TBUT test but will request one soon.

Ihave switched over to wearing glasses full time after almost 7 years of wearing contact lenses and would really love to wear contacts again in the future. Please share any stories you guys may have! Thanks everyone.

[waterbee]

hi kimmy, welcome to the forum. please keep us up to date on your progress. ive heard of dry eye happening after birth control on these forums so think you will across others with this experience.
Have you attempted the basics while waiting to get your TBUT tested, like fish oil? (it can make all the difference for some) you may want to also look into a vitamin deficiency that may effect your eyes too, like vitamin b12, since the birth control usually gives a shorter period and once stopped periods can become heavy causing low vitamin b12 has been found to effect dry eyes . (if you search on pubmed you can find the odd cases of dry eye being solved with correction) hope this helps.

[kimmy25]

Thank you for your insight! As for the basics I am currently taking Theratears flax seed/fish oil blend pills (3 a day) and use Refresh Plus eye drops. I have been using Restasis for a week and half and already feeling some relief (hope it's not a placebo!). As for vitamin deficiencies I am not sure about B12 but I may be Vit D deficient. I have yet to check my vitamin levels except for A which mine were normal. I also had a blood test for Sjorgrens which came back negative and I do not have any other symptoms other than dry eye.

I do have PCOS which causes irregular ovulation due to a hormone imbalance and do believe this may be contributing to my dry eye? Though I have higher testosterone levels and lower estrogen levels which I thought would help produce more tears not less? I have yet to have a normal period after quitting my birth control 1 month ago so only time will tell..

Please feel free to leave any feedback or any other personal experiences like mine!

[pythonidler]

Hi Kimmy,

I can't speak to the birth control part of it (I'm a guy), but I can say that wearing contact lenses for 11+ years partially contributed to my dry eye. My theory about contact lenses is that when they cover your eye, you don't blink as much. The lower blinking rate may cause meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD). Have you been diagnosed with MGD? It would be good to find out if you do have it.

As for whether you can wear contacts in the future - that probably depends on how much you're able to recover, and how often you plan on wearing them. If you fully recover and only plan on wearing them occasionally, it'll probably be fine. Personally, although my tear film is thick enough to wear contact lenses, I choose not to because I know it will make my eyes worse in the long-term.

Regarding the other things you're trying, they sound like a good start. I've been taking 2000 mg of omega-3 daily for a few years now, and it definitely helps reduce inflammation. Restasis is another good thing - although I wouldn't expect to feel significantly better from it. For me at least, Restasis gives marginal relief.

[waterbee]

Thank you for your insight! As for the basics I am currently taking Theratears flax seed/fish oil blend pills (3 a day) and use Refresh Plus eye drops. I have been using Restasis for a week and half and already feeling some relief (hope it's not a placebo!). As for vitamin deficiencies I am not sure about B12 but I may be Vit D deficient. I have yet to check my vitamin levels except for A which mine were normal. I also had a blood test for Sjorgrens which came back negative and I do not have any other symptoms other than dry eye.

I do have PCOS which causes irregular ovulation due to a hormone imbalance and do believe this may be contributing to my dry eye? Though I have higher testosterone levels and lower estrogen levels which I thought would help produce more tears not less? I have yet to have a normal period after quitting my birth control 1 month ago so only time will tell..

Please feel free to leave any feedback or any other personal experiences like mine!

hi again kimmy
i do think our hormones can play a part, many women notice different degrees of dry eye depending on there cycle. for a while i could predict when my eyes would be at there worse when i made a chart of my cycle over several months and my worst days! but over time this seems to stopped working, i feel this likely as my dry eye has improved over time, so now for me now its more to do with the seasons (allergic inflammation) and food i eat. (histamine issue)

Vitamin D does play a part in dry eye, there any many evidence baced studies on it , so really hoping it might be your answer. i would recommend to everyone to search on line for the important role of vitamin D, magnesium and b12/iron for dry eye, they seem to be more common then a vitamin A deficiency and there there are some lucky ones that make a recovery when simpy adding vitamins to there diet (though it will take approx 3 months for many to see any difference ) its also worthy to note that the majority of eye specialist wont mention this or even be aware of it since its not part of there training, the same for doctors who will only look at key symptoms for b12 and vitamin D, and ignore any other effects involving the eyes unless they can actually see somthing wrong. this does the vitamin role in our eyes a great disservice.