Any students out there?

[Milo007]

Hi everyone,
Starting with my brief introduction, I am a post graduate student pursuing higher studies in engineering. I am 26 now and I have been a sufferer of MGD for the last 3 years until recently my condition aggravated so dramatically (early this year).I am having the toughest time of my life and being a student I am honestly panicking about my academic future. I have stopped using ceiling fans let alone using an AC because it makes my eyes worse. I am using a pedestal fan now and climate in my locality is hot and humid year round. Even though I run the fan at minimum speeds and sit at a distance of 6-7 feet from the air delivery (with my back facing the fan) I am still facing issues while focusing during reading. I can feel my eyes drying out quickly as blink rate reduces. When I am blinking frequently while doing other tasks I don't feel that symptomatic. But it's mainly when I am focusing on things for extended periods of time.

So, I was wondering if there are people out there who are facing troubles pursuing their academic life.It would be great to share our experiences just to ease out things maybe if not make things better.

[MGD1701]

Hi welcome.
Strongly suggest you wear moisture chamber glasses so you can manage daily life and study etc. Dry eye shop has all different brands, 7Eye etc.
Dry eye/MGD is progressive so wise to treat it earlier for comfort and save money/glands too.

[Milo007]

Where are you located MGD1701?

I am from India. I doubt if moisture chamber glasses are available in my country.

Also, how can I stop my condition from progressing or deteriorating? I am already doing warm compresses twice daily and on chloroquine phosphate eye drops (anti inflammatory drops like restasis) twice daily. I avoid lubricating drops entirely specially the ones with preservatives. Is there anything else I should do to save my precious glands?

I will definitely see if I can arrange moisture chamber glasses in my country. I have prescription glasses too can moisture chamber glasses be fitted with custom prescription lenses?

Thanks for the response once again.

[MGD1701]

Moisture chammber glasses
Dry eye shop here in the forum sells them. Please visit their shop website. or you can contact producers. normally glasses can be replaced.
You can order some pairs so hopefully one pair fits.

How to stop progressive? long topic. easiest is find an expert who runs all necessary ojbective tests = as only objective data can detect causes. I don have such luck yet so I keep learning/exploring new things.
More, you can read my earlier postings, strongly recommend you watch Dr Korb videos 2016 (I posed in my posting too, including Blephaseam), 2014, 2012

http://forum.dryeyezone.com/forum/ar...a-tea-tree-oil

[SirDryEye]

Milo007 im also a student and finding it tough. Unfortunately there’s nothing you can do until you’ve cured your condition, the more you use the computer/electronic devices the more you’ll aggrevate your condition.

[Milo007]

Moisture chammber glasses
Dry eye shop here in the forum sells them. Please visit their shop website. or you can contact producers. normally glasses can be replaced.
You can order some pairs so hopefully one pair fits.

How to stop progressive? long topic. easiest is find an expert who runs all necessary ojbective tests = as only objective data can detect causes. I don have such luck yet so I keep learning/exploring new things.
More, you can read my earlier postings, strongly recommend you watch Dr Korb videos 2016 (I posed in my posting too, including Blephaseam), 2014, 2012

http://forum.dryeyezone.com/forum/ar...a-tea-tree-oil

Thanks friend!

I will look into your suggestions. Let me know of anything more you think would be beneficial to me.

[Milo007]

Milo007 im also a student and finding it tough. Unfortunately there’s nothing you can do until you’ve cured your condition, the more you use the computer/electronic devices the more you’ll aggrevate your condition.

Hi friend. How old are you? I am 26. How long have you been suffering? Do you find it difficult to read books as well?

[Rebecca Petris]

Re Dry Eye Shop - I'm afraid we actually recently stopped selling dry eye glasses (long story!) though we have a fair amount on clearance still. But ALWAYS happy to help with questions about what to get and where to go to get it! There's lots of options from cheap onion goggles to 7Eye and Ziena and WileyX.

My daughter's a student (she's just about to turn 16) and she wears prescription Ziena Nereus glasses when she's spending long stretches on the computer. See zienaeyewear.com.

[Milo007]

Re Dry Eye Shop - I'm afraid we actually recently stopped selling dry eye glasses (long story!) though we have a fair amount on clearance still. But ALWAYS happy to help with questions about what to get and where to go to get it! There's lots of options from cheap onion goggles to 7Eye and Ziena and WileyX.

My daughter's a student (she's just about to turn 16) and she wears prescription Ziena Nereus glasses when she's spending long stretches on the computer. See zienaeyewear.com.

Thanks Rebecca for the response.

You wrote about your 16 year old daughter coping up with dry eyes.It's extremely sad to know that a 16 year old teenager is suffering from issues that's certainly not expected at her age. I am really concerned about the future of our and subsequent generations.Are we destined to live by the standards of a 70 year old at 20s or pre-20s? Doesn't look acceptable at all.

Well coming back to the reality, I would like to focus on anything that might help me save my academic career and quality of life. I would like to ask a few questions to get an idea of these glasses and how they work.

1. You wrote about your daughter. I would like to know if she's suffering from an aqueous deficiency or a meibomian gland dysfunction or a combination.

2. Assuming that your daughter is having a MGD, how long is she comfortable with those glasses while doing activities like reading or using a digital screen? Is there a limit to the duration upto which one can expect manageability?

3. I am from India and as far as I am concerned we don't have access to indigenously manufactured moisture chamber glasses. So for me the only option is to import this kind of glasses and I can't even go to a showroom to put and try on the various models of these glasses. So I need help regarding sorting out the perfect fit for such glasses. Is there a way I can select the appropriate fit of the glasses?

4. Please suggest me some brands that offer Rx-able glasses those are comfortable to use, lightweight and durable. What's your personal choice?

5. Do moisture chamber glasses work only by sealing the moisture creating a flap around the eyes and the specs? Or some come with moisture foams too? Are the glasses with moisture pads more advisable?

6. Finally, do humidifiers help in combination with moisture chamber glasses? Do you suggest the use of a humidifier The climate in my location is mostly humid and moderately hot (70-99% RH, 35-42°C year round excluding short winters)

I am really looking forward to your next response.Until then let's have faith.

[Milo007]

Milo007 I am a post grad student now. I go out and do field work and lab work also. I will not lie to you it is absolute hell. I consider dropping out every day. I am now wearing bandage lenses on both eyes and wear moisture chamber glasses. I actually go in tomorrow for scleral lens fitting and am hoping this will finally help. At this point i have tried like 30 things and nothing has offered any significant help.

I have the lights dimmed in my office. i have the computer brightness way down. I do the blinking exerciese. It is just that nothing helps me at all.

Here is what I have tried so far:
http://forum.dryeyezone.com/forum/dr...elping-someone

Good luck to you, I hope your situation improves.

Yes my friend. It's indeed absolute disaster for a student.

Do you manage to read at all?

I am getting demoralized after listening to all the sad stories including yours.

[diydry]

If you are already living in a humid climate, then I'm not sure it will be worth your trouble to invest in moisture chamber glasses, especially since you are in India and it may be extremely difficult to import a well-fitting pair. The same goes with a humidifier, most people who need these devices live in dry climates (deserts or winter climates), it's hard to imagine these devices will add much benefit in a 70-99% relative humidity climate, although I could absolutely be wrong and I do not mean to scare you, and perhaps others with more experience living in these climates can chime in.

[Rebecca Petris]

You wrote about your 16 year old daughter coping up with dry eyes.It's extremely sad to know that a 16 year old teenager is suffering from issues that's certainly not expected at her age. I am really concerned about the future of our and subsequent generations.Are we destined to live by the standards of a 70 year old at 20s or pre-20s? Doesn't look acceptable at all.

[/quote]

In broad terms i most definitely share this concern. I think that the US is almost totally oblivious to what is happening to kids' eyes right now, and instead of researching it and starting to talk about prevention, the eyecare professions are just continuing to push more elective eye surgeries, more contacts and more topical drugs to address any symptom that comes along. A prime example of this is Lumify. Talk about horrifically short term thinking.

Well coming back to the reality, I would like to focus on anything that might help me save my academic career and quality of life. I would like to ask a few questions to get an idea of these glasses and how they work.

1. You wrote about your daughter. I would like to know if she's suffering from an aqueous deficiency or a meibomian gland dysfunction or a combination.

2. Assuming that your daughter is having a MGD, how long is she comfortable with those glasses while doing activities like reading or using a digital screen? Is there a limit to the duration upto which one can expect manageability?

For privacy reasons I'm going to opt out of details about my daughter (and thankfully her situation's quite mild), but happy to answer the real points of what you're getting at. As you might expect the range of what's expected will vary. I have known a great many people who can work full time on a computer if they are in moisture chambers that entire time. I know others with very severe aqueous deficient type dry eye for whom moisture chambers can allow them some computer time, but not hours and hours. - It's a simple thing to test out, by the way. Swim goggles, safety goggles, or even just adding weatherstripping to a pair of normal glasses. It's good to test the concept before investing in expensive glasses.

3. I am from India and as far as I am concerned we don't have access to indigenously manufactured moisture chamber glasses. So for me the only option is to import this kind of glasses and I can't even go to a showroom to put and try on the various models of these glasses. So I need help regarding sorting out the perfect fit for such glasses. Is there a way I can select the appropriate fit of the glasses?

That's a serious problem, and not just based on geography... most people in the US don't have a place they can go to try them. There are some dry eye glasses made in Japan that are more Asian friendly in general and I know there are companies in China that are making, or working towards making, dry eye glasses there too. The prevalence of dry eye in China and Japan is phenomenal and I am hoping that will lead to the development of software technologies to, for example, scan faces and have glasses matched or designed to the shape Might sound far fetched. But one can dream

4. Please suggest me some brands that offer Rx-able glasses those are comfortable to use, lightweight and durable. What's your personal choice?

For indoor use, in the US, there's really only two options: Ziena, and Seefit MEGs. Ziena has deeper shields. But very few framestyles and not adjustable. Seefit MEGs at least are adjustable. I don't sell any of them anymore but when I was, I sometimes sent Ziena Seacrest frames to customers in India and other places in SE Asia with a reasonably successful fit.
Seefit MEGs are the lightest weight, for sure.

5. Do moisture chamber glasses work only by sealing the moisture creating a flap around the eyes and the specs? Or some come with moisture foams too? Are the glasses with moisture pads more advisable?

Adding moisture is problematic because of fogging. Having said that, I've heard of the Tranquileyes MREs being helpful to some people in fulltime computer use. But more broadly, moisture chambers work by keeping stuff out (moving air, dry air, and particles) and keeping stuff in (humidity - between drops/tears and body heat, humidity in the chamber rises). I don't think we'll know until/unless someone studies it fully but from anecdotal evidence over the last ~10 years personally I don't feel there's any reason to believe adding moisture matters.

6. Finally, do humidifiers help in combination with moisture chamber glasses? Do you suggest the use of a humidifier The climate in my location is mostly humid and moderately hot (70-99% RH, 35-42°C year round excluding short winters)

I don't know, no real data available but in my opinion, humidifiers should be used in unusually dry environments. If the relative humidity is already high, humidifiers are probably just going to increase the risk of problem from molds.

[Milo007]

In broad terms i most definitely share this concern. I think that the US is almost totally oblivious to what is happening to kids' eyes right now, and instead of researching it and starting to talk about prevention, the eyecare professions are just continuing to push more elective eye surgeries, more contacts and more topical drugs to address any symptom that comes along. A prime example of this is Lumify. Talk about horrifically short term thinking.


For privacy reasons I'm going to opt out of details about my daughter (and thankfully her situation's quite mild), but happy to answer the real points of what you're getting at. As you might expect the range of what's expected will vary. I have known a great many people who can work full time on a computer if they are in moisture chambers that entire time. I know others with very severe aqueous deficient type dry eye for whom moisture chambers can allow them some computer time, but not hours and hours. - It's a simple thing to test out, by the way. Swim goggles, safety goggles, or even just adding weatherstripping to a pair of normal glasses. It's good to test the concept before investing in expensive glasses.


That's a serious problem, and not just based on geography... most people in the US don't have a place they can go to try them. There are some dry eye glasses made in Japan that are more Asian friendly in general and I know there are companies in China that are making, or working towards making, dry eye glasses there too. The prevalence of dry eye in China and Japan is phenomenal and I am hoping that will lead to the development of software technologies to, for example, scan faces and have glasses matched or designed to the shape Might sound far fetched. But one can dream


For indoor use, in the US, there's really only two options: Ziena, and Seefit MEGs. Ziena has deeper shields. But very few framestyles and not adjustable. Seefit MEGs at least are adjustable. I don't sell any of them anymore but when I was, I sometimes sent Ziena Seacrest frames to customers in India and other places in SE Asia with a reasonably successful fit.
Seefit MEGs are the lightest weight, for sure.



Adding moisture is problematic because of fogging. Having said that, I've heard of the Tranquileyes MREs being helpful to some people in fulltime computer use. But more broadly, moisture chambers work by keeping stuff out (moving air, dry air, and particles) and keeping stuff in (humidity - between drops/tears and body heat, humidity in the chamber rises). I don't think we'll know until/unless someone studies it fully but from anecdotal evidence over the last ~10 years personally I don't feel there's any reason to believe adding moisture matters.


I don't know, no real data available but in my opinion, humidifiers should be used in unusually dry environments. If the relative humidity is already high, humidifiers are probably just going to increase the risk of problem from molds.
[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the response Rebecca.

May I ask if you can ship moisture chamber glasses of a possible fit for me to India if a give an estimate of my facial features?

You wrote you have a few stocks left since dry eye shop stopped selling products in this forum.

It's always better to try things that might help.

[Rebecca Petris]

Happy to if we have any left! If not I think that the folks at 7Eye/Ziena would be able to - see zienaeyewear.com. Seacrest is probably the most promising, of that seris.

[Guest]

I know this is not a popular suggestion, but if you can possibly take off from your studies or work, for say a half year or year, it might reduce further impact to your glands and give your eyes a rest. It would also give you more time to focus on seeking help and treatment, before your condition gets too severe and more difficult to resolve. Maybe move in with relatives. If you work, see if you are able to at least get short term disability. I realize doing all this is not easy, but it could be beneficial in the long run for your eyes and overall life.

I kept working for five years after the onset of my severe MGD and aqueous deficiency, until I could no longer bear to look at the computer and drive to work because my pain was so debilitating, I had reached virtually zero tear film, and developed blepharospasms. Then it took me three more years trying to do research on specialists, treatments, diets, etc. and getting those treatments to help my underlying condition, which was all tremendously difficult to do in the shape I was in...I had to heavily rely on my husband to help me. Fortunately after those three years I did find resolution from probing+diet+sclerals, but during this 8 year span, several of my glands were lost/atrophied. So the sclerals help compensate for the remaining dryness from these lost glands, but I honestly believe I would have made a complete recovery where my eyes were back to normal, had it not taken me so long and I had not lost so many glands. So if I knew what I know now, I would have stopped working much earlier. Just my thoughts.