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Hello my name is Dave, 57 years old, i live in northern California.
My story
I thought I'd write down everything i could think of as my problem has been around for many
years of my life. Perhaps this will help others or maybe someone can make comments as they
find things that match what they are feeling.
I hesitated about posting this much info.. However someone somewhere may find this helpful.
Work
Working indoor with AC and Heating increases my eye problems
I seem to have reactions to hot and cold and also airborne particles, both in my eyes and my
sinuses.. Sneezing.
I work in IT and always thought my eye problem was part of my job. I sit behind a monitor 8
hours a day.
Pain
My eyes hurt over the top of my eyes, i was tested for sinis infection and told I dont have any
sinuses. It seems to help massaging over the top of my eyes.
Doctors
I have been to several top opthamologists over the years who told me my eyes are great and see
no problem, that its just strain. One eye doctor said i may have a degree of dry eye and he
suggested some drops and sent me on my way.
For years I had no idea what was wrong with me, i spend thousands of out of pocket money to
get tested for just about anything imaginable.
Creepy eyes
Years later I'm single, women think I'm creepy because I cant tolerate sun. they ask me to take
off my glasses or show pictures of my eyes without glasses. I've had this creepy eye issue for
years. I frown allot and squint allot.
Painful Waking
I have noticed that since I was very young, perhaps in my 20's that I would wake up and my
eyes immediately needed water to help alleviate the pain I had upon awakening. I always had
to be near a sink or fresh water to wake up properly. When i went camping i kept a bottle of
water in my tent to use when i woke up.
Lately it has been worse waking up and since i dont sleep well i think my eyes suffer from any
recovery cause I only sleep 3-4 hours a night.
Driving
Some days driving to work i cannot even keep my eyes open while driving. I'll bet the
ventilation has something to do with this.
I tried several prescription eye drops and they must have had preservative in them because over
a few days my condition got really worse.
Anxiety
When i meet people i get anxious because i feel like they are looking at my eyes. Some times
they are really red and people think i smoke weed. and I dont.
I avoid eye contact with people and wear sun glasses indoors.
Summer air, hot or windy conditions drive me crazy and i wear sunglasses everywhere. They
are my savior.
Matter in the eye
I always found stringy matter in my eye, it would block my vision. So when I was driving I
would use my hands and fingers to remove this, probably infecting and irritating my eyes
worse.
Some times I notice like sand in the corner of my eye, itches bad and takes some doing to get
the sand out of the corner of my eye.
Work
My days at work are tough, i stuggle to get through the day and drive home.
I have dual 20 inch computer monitors and i'm sure thats not helping my eyes. I made a change
that might have helped, i changed my background screen to medium gray. I used to have a solid
blue background but I heard blue radiation can irritate the eyes. Its seems to have helped.
I also have computer reading glasses, 24 inch focal length.. typical glasses are 16-18 I believe.
this allows me to sit back and not have to squint.
Closing my eyes
My ex girl friend said to me " I notice you stand with your eyes closed". I wash my dishes with
my eyes closed. I get up at night to use the mens room and i navigate around like a blind man.
It feels good to have my eyes closed.
I could never figure out why i always close my eyes, never realized it was the irritation from the
air that was cause me to want to close them. I cannot keep my eyes open without blinking for
only a couple seconds.
I walk around my house like a blind man, i feel my way around because I have my eyes closed
when i'm at home. Some people think I'm meditating.. lol
Sensitivity to light
Sunlight is literally unbearable. When i was a kid i would be on the lake in my boat every
weekend. I recall not even owning sun glasses. now i wonder how i ever did that and I wonder
if I can ever tolerate sunlight again.
Drops
My biggest concern is to start on drops and find out days later that they have irriated my eyes
beyond normal and will have to wean off the drops just to get back to some type of normal.
Meaning prescription or over the counter lubricating drops.
I tried stuff like visine which is like death for the eyes, it made my condition so bad took weeks
to recover. I'm sure everyone here knows that. But back in the 70-80's it was, go get the visine.
Tea
For what its worth, a friend of mine who was born in Argentina said to try tea bags on my
eyes.. it seemed to help and was relieving .. I gave it up after a time since it didnt seem to cure
the problem.
Mercury
I also discovered i had high mercury level from eating allot of fresh ocean caught fish, since I am
a fisherman.. But I corrected that situation by not eating fish until my body released all the
mercury and back to normal levels. I also had my metal fillings removed which had no impact
on my mercury levels cause they were back to normal before i had the fillings done. i can safely
say at least in my case that mercury had no impact my my eye condition as it still persists. ( I
read someone posting on mercury here )
Whether or not mercuy has impacted my immune system i cannot say for sure, but I can tell you
my blood tests out perfectly for a 57 year old. I always have superb blood sugar, blood
pressure, all of it. Doctors are always saying I have great blood chemistry and very healthy in
that regard.
By the way mercury is an interesting thing, it will secrete from your cells into your blood, some
gets excreted and then the body will reabsorb some of the mercury back into your cells. So the
tests take time to really see anything, takes months to excrete mercury unless you do this
chelation method.. which i never had to do. last but not least there are no real symptoms of
high mercury ( which some place the limit at 10 PPB .. mine was 20 PPB ).. The symptoms only
get really pronounced if you have some astronomically high mercury poisoning. Symptoms are
are very subjective. Some people can feel something wrong as they get higher levels.. some do
not have symptoms and can live with very high levels and not even know it.
Blood tests are the only real way to know what your mercury level is. High limit threshold
values vary from lab to lab.
Dairy
I've tried eliminating dairy, cheese, milk.. i avoided cheese and milk for over a year. Funny, it
seemed to improve my overall health. But during this time frame i did have eye flair up issues..
While dairy may not have been the root cause, avoiding dairy might have helped my overall
well being. my personal experience is that I found no cure in elimintaing dairy or i would have
never went back to eating it. I think eliminating dairy probably reduced my inflammation and
may have improved my eye condition during that time but no silver bullet.
Beer
I drink 2-3 beers a day for many years. Not sure what the long term affects of drinking a couple
beers a day for most of my life is. I thought maybe this was dehydrating me and causing eye
problems. I've gone a week with no beer and had no impact on my eyes. .. Probably wouldnt
hurt to quit anyhow.
Seeing halos
Here's another anomaly, when driving in my car with my sun glasses on.. or walking around. i
would notice a halo or an aura around objects in the distance. I thought maybe i was psychic or
seeing things. I wrote it off as being some issue with my eyes. Trying to be funny here but the
halo thing is real. Its usually a darkish streak or halo around some distant object.
Surgery
One other item to mention, i had an eyelid surgery to eliminate some of the baggyness in my
eyes. It was mainly for cosmetic reasons but I also thought that not having the heavy feeling
over my eyes might help.. it didnt.
Dry Eye Talk
I have recently discovered this web site and started to focus on dry eye treatments, including
preservative free drops, gel drops, ointment at night.
Its really looking like it helps, at least I'm on the right track since no doctor seemed to have the
knowledge to link this condition with my problems.
I'm trying to post everything i can think of about my condition so that it may help me or
someone else to correlate all this info.. I'm sure other folks have notice allot of the same.
Given all of this and from what i read, i probably belong to the group of dry eye suffferers.
Being an engineer , i hope to find the root cause and be able to minimize if not eliminate the
issue. Being an engineer I probably havent been able to see the forest because of the trees as
well. ( meaning i have been looking for everything but the obvious )
Thanks to all of you for reading my story and providing this web site. it may have changed my
life, which has sucked for quite some time.
My story
I thought I'd write down everything i could think of as my problem has been around for many
years of my life. Perhaps this will help others or maybe someone can make comments as they
find things that match what they are feeling.
I hesitated about posting this much info.. However someone somewhere may find this helpful.
Work
Working indoor with AC and Heating increases my eye problems
I seem to have reactions to hot and cold and also airborne particles, both in my eyes and my
sinuses.. Sneezing.
I work in IT and always thought my eye problem was part of my job. I sit behind a monitor 8
hours a day.
Pain
My eyes hurt over the top of my eyes, i was tested for sinis infection and told I dont have any
sinuses. It seems to help massaging over the top of my eyes.
Doctors
I have been to several top opthamologists over the years who told me my eyes are great and see
no problem, that its just strain. One eye doctor said i may have a degree of dry eye and he
suggested some drops and sent me on my way.
For years I had no idea what was wrong with me, i spend thousands of out of pocket money to
get tested for just about anything imaginable.
Creepy eyes
Years later I'm single, women think I'm creepy because I cant tolerate sun. they ask me to take
off my glasses or show pictures of my eyes without glasses. I've had this creepy eye issue for
years. I frown allot and squint allot.
Painful Waking
I have noticed that since I was very young, perhaps in my 20's that I would wake up and my
eyes immediately needed water to help alleviate the pain I had upon awakening. I always had
to be near a sink or fresh water to wake up properly. When i went camping i kept a bottle of
water in my tent to use when i woke up.
Lately it has been worse waking up and since i dont sleep well i think my eyes suffer from any
recovery cause I only sleep 3-4 hours a night.
Driving
Some days driving to work i cannot even keep my eyes open while driving. I'll bet the
ventilation has something to do with this.
I tried several prescription eye drops and they must have had preservative in them because over
a few days my condition got really worse.
Anxiety
When i meet people i get anxious because i feel like they are looking at my eyes. Some times
they are really red and people think i smoke weed. and I dont.
I avoid eye contact with people and wear sun glasses indoors.
Summer air, hot or windy conditions drive me crazy and i wear sunglasses everywhere. They
are my savior.
Matter in the eye
I always found stringy matter in my eye, it would block my vision. So when I was driving I
would use my hands and fingers to remove this, probably infecting and irritating my eyes
worse.
Some times I notice like sand in the corner of my eye, itches bad and takes some doing to get
the sand out of the corner of my eye.
Work
My days at work are tough, i stuggle to get through the day and drive home.
I have dual 20 inch computer monitors and i'm sure thats not helping my eyes. I made a change
that might have helped, i changed my background screen to medium gray. I used to have a solid
blue background but I heard blue radiation can irritate the eyes. Its seems to have helped.
I also have computer reading glasses, 24 inch focal length.. typical glasses are 16-18 I believe.
this allows me to sit back and not have to squint.
Closing my eyes
My ex girl friend said to me " I notice you stand with your eyes closed". I wash my dishes with
my eyes closed. I get up at night to use the mens room and i navigate around like a blind man.
It feels good to have my eyes closed.
I could never figure out why i always close my eyes, never realized it was the irritation from the
air that was cause me to want to close them. I cannot keep my eyes open without blinking for
only a couple seconds.
I walk around my house like a blind man, i feel my way around because I have my eyes closed
when i'm at home. Some people think I'm meditating.. lol
Sensitivity to light
Sunlight is literally unbearable. When i was a kid i would be on the lake in my boat every
weekend. I recall not even owning sun glasses. now i wonder how i ever did that and I wonder
if I can ever tolerate sunlight again.
Drops
My biggest concern is to start on drops and find out days later that they have irriated my eyes
beyond normal and will have to wean off the drops just to get back to some type of normal.
Meaning prescription or over the counter lubricating drops.
I tried stuff like visine which is like death for the eyes, it made my condition so bad took weeks
to recover. I'm sure everyone here knows that. But back in the 70-80's it was, go get the visine.
Tea
For what its worth, a friend of mine who was born in Argentina said to try tea bags on my
eyes.. it seemed to help and was relieving .. I gave it up after a time since it didnt seem to cure
the problem.
Mercury
I also discovered i had high mercury level from eating allot of fresh ocean caught fish, since I am
a fisherman.. But I corrected that situation by not eating fish until my body released all the
mercury and back to normal levels. I also had my metal fillings removed which had no impact
on my mercury levels cause they were back to normal before i had the fillings done. i can safely
say at least in my case that mercury had no impact my my eye condition as it still persists. ( I
read someone posting on mercury here )
Whether or not mercuy has impacted my immune system i cannot say for sure, but I can tell you
my blood tests out perfectly for a 57 year old. I always have superb blood sugar, blood
pressure, all of it. Doctors are always saying I have great blood chemistry and very healthy in
that regard.
By the way mercury is an interesting thing, it will secrete from your cells into your blood, some
gets excreted and then the body will reabsorb some of the mercury back into your cells. So the
tests take time to really see anything, takes months to excrete mercury unless you do this
chelation method.. which i never had to do. last but not least there are no real symptoms of
high mercury ( which some place the limit at 10 PPB .. mine was 20 PPB ).. The symptoms only
get really pronounced if you have some astronomically high mercury poisoning. Symptoms are
are very subjective. Some people can feel something wrong as they get higher levels.. some do
not have symptoms and can live with very high levels and not even know it.
Blood tests are the only real way to know what your mercury level is. High limit threshold
values vary from lab to lab.
Dairy
I've tried eliminating dairy, cheese, milk.. i avoided cheese and milk for over a year. Funny, it
seemed to improve my overall health. But during this time frame i did have eye flair up issues..
While dairy may not have been the root cause, avoiding dairy might have helped my overall
well being. my personal experience is that I found no cure in elimintaing dairy or i would have
never went back to eating it. I think eliminating dairy probably reduced my inflammation and
may have improved my eye condition during that time but no silver bullet.
Beer
I drink 2-3 beers a day for many years. Not sure what the long term affects of drinking a couple
beers a day for most of my life is. I thought maybe this was dehydrating me and causing eye
problems. I've gone a week with no beer and had no impact on my eyes. .. Probably wouldnt
hurt to quit anyhow.
Seeing halos
Here's another anomaly, when driving in my car with my sun glasses on.. or walking around. i
would notice a halo or an aura around objects in the distance. I thought maybe i was psychic or
seeing things. I wrote it off as being some issue with my eyes. Trying to be funny here but the
halo thing is real. Its usually a darkish streak or halo around some distant object.
Surgery
One other item to mention, i had an eyelid surgery to eliminate some of the baggyness in my
eyes. It was mainly for cosmetic reasons but I also thought that not having the heavy feeling
over my eyes might help.. it didnt.
Dry Eye Talk
I have recently discovered this web site and started to focus on dry eye treatments, including
preservative free drops, gel drops, ointment at night.
Its really looking like it helps, at least I'm on the right track since no doctor seemed to have the
knowledge to link this condition with my problems.
I'm trying to post everything i can think of about my condition so that it may help me or
someone else to correlate all this info.. I'm sure other folks have notice allot of the same.
Given all of this and from what i read, i probably belong to the group of dry eye suffferers.
Being an engineer , i hope to find the root cause and be able to minimize if not eliminate the
issue. Being an engineer I probably havent been able to see the forest because of the trees as
well. ( meaning i have been looking for everything but the obvious )
Thanks to all of you for reading my story and providing this web site. it may have changed my
life, which has sucked for quite some time.
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