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Hi Dry Eye Zone members,
I've been wanting to make a post but I've been holding back because honestly being chronically ill takes up alot of energy. I'm always worried if I am spending my energy wisely as any moment my body could just fight back with debilitating pain.
My journey with eye pain started in March 8th 2014 (when the MH370 plane went missing), I live in South East Asia but at that time I was travelling to India to see my grandmother. A little background on me is that I'm a Type A personality and I spent most of my youth building up my resume so that I could ensure a good graduate program for myself after my bachelors degree, that meant I sacrificed a lot of family time such as Indian holidays, trips to India etc. However that said, I made a lot of time for networking, corporate events and I would usually de stress like any other girl in her young twenties by going to raves and clubs.
Before my trip to India in March, I was A-okay except for a minor episode of headaches in December 2013 (during my finals period) - I saw eye doctors then and they gave me pathaday drops and I was fine from January -February 2014.
I got two infections in March 2014, (1) E coli infection and (2) a food infection (where I ended up with a drip and I had fever for five days).
I wore Acuve Monthly from 2005 -2013. And changed to Acuve Daily from 2014. I stopped wearing contacts in March 2014.
After my food infection, everything went weird. I would have constant headaches. My eyes experienced: burning, dry sensation, light sensitivity, roughness, poking and squeezing sensation, and a foreign object.
I was told by several doctors in New Delhi that this was just eye strain and I would be okay in a month. Things did not look up even with the eye drops. However being Type A, I was persistently trying to keep my schedule in India going ( I was studying for my g-mat) and I had graduated from my bachelors in Dec 2013. Things were supposed to be looking up, I was happy to see my grandmother, everyone was telling me I was just stressed and this was not making any sense to me.
Well suffice to say a month passed and my symptoms got worst. After a month, I saw a Ayurvedic Eye doctor in India, and began treatments. I did the treatments for 3 weeks and returned to South East Asia at the end of May 2014.
I was keen to be home to see my parents, brother and my then boyfriend who were all shocked to see my appearance when I landed, I was looking down at the ground because I could not handle the lights, my face had pimples everywhere (I had really good complexion before this) and I looked like I was in a lot of pain.
However my eyes felt significantly different after the Ayur treatments despite the light sensitivity (my migraines continued). I was so in denial about my condition and trying so hard to go back to my old life that after a week back home - I tried on contacts and wore it for a dinner. BIG mistake. All my symptoms came flooding back but with more roughness in the eye.
I went to a new eye doctor in SEA (South east asia) and she said I had a abrasion in my eye. She gave me one week of steroids (Maxidex by Alcon) and then my vision became clear and the pain was less. However I started passing out from looking at the screen for an hour. My head and face hurt alot and my eyes hated light. While the roughness in my eyes stopped, I continued to have a foreign object feeling, light sensitivity, dry sensation. My eye doctors said I was mildly dry, but very little.
My dad realized the pain was not coming from outside the eye but behind it and speculated that we may need to see a neuro. Saw a neuro, she did a MRI, everything came clean. My neuro gave me gabapatin, xanax, and lexapro. I felt some pressure reduce after taking gabapatin but after that no effect. I took the meds for another 30 days (from July to August). Then gave up on the neuro. I started my masters in August too.
I went back to Ayurvedic treatments in August and my migraines stopped coming everyday in October 2014. Instead of every day, I would get them 4 days a week. Then in december it reduced even further. My eyes continued to give me grief as I hated looking at the screen and found it hard to keep up with emails, whatsapp messages and work.
I started using pandol patches on my head and near my eyes to keep distracted from the pain so I could so work. I also found coffee elevated the pain so what behind my eyes and also my migraine.
My boyfriend of 2 years left me and decided to focus on his career because I was expecting him to help me get through this and he wanted to take a back seat role. We used to be a power couple but he decided that I was expecting too much from him and that I was always upset with him for not trying to be more committed to us. I was 23 years old last year and he was 26. I guess he wanted the healthy fun verision. He also felt that he had failed me and that he could not do more in our relationship and that I deserved better. He always felt that I was too good looking for him (who cares) and smarter than him. It's funny that he thinks that but I was the one struggling to have a normal life, my skin was a wreck, I would never get good sleep and I would only start work at 1pm (and he was getting A-grade status in his work performance review). I hated life cause I could not do anything but sleep and work, sleep and work. There was so much work in masters, that i had to dedicate any time I was not resting to work. That meant I lost alot of my network, I knew my network was not all real friends but I had invested alot of time in building such a network to help me later on when I join corporate. I was really upset that everything was falling apart and then on top of that, I was dealing with a a break up.
I don't hold any grudge about whats happened with my relationships, just that my health going so down means I can't be a all-rounder and thats what I had thrived on previously.
I feel like now that Ive been sick, I can't be around people my age who party all day and work hard. They are destroying their bodies and its kind of exhausting being around them. Its their choice but so hard to be around the average twenty something, all they think about is the next party and drinking.
Anyways I digress.
I reached a point where I got better in January - Eyes and migraines. I felt ready to try contacts at the end of February (I had not tried contacts since June 2014) and it was okay the first 3 times. The fourth time in March, caused such a big flare up the next day in both eyes and head that I was left with another problem - waking up in pain.
I was miserable. I would wake up with sharp pain in my eyes and fatigue. And my eye lids would always feel heavy!!
I went back to my ayurvedic doctor and he put me on a treatment to get my eyes more wet and less rough and painful. Also, my light sensitivity came back but it was mild compared to before. From March to April I worked with my Ayurvedic doctor. I got really fed up in May as I was sleeping at 2 am and waking up at 12pm, it was ridiculous. And I would work all the way from 1pm to 1am everyday on my master's thesis.
I went to see my GP in May and he put me on Hydrocortison for a month, told me to go on a food elimination diet (i dont eat dairy, gluten, carbs, wheat and this means no roti or rice with my meals), and gave me supplements he had tried himself to see if they were effective. All of this was costly but my parents were willing to try it since I had been sick for so long. He also gave me a shot of cortison because I was crying and telling everyone I didnt want to wake up anymore because this was just a useless life of pain and it was way to hard to cope anymore. Ive thought about dying a lot. If you deal with pain everyday and losing your old life and being not able to do anything about it, you think about death.
After 3 days of doing what my GP said, I stopped waking up in pain. Touch wood!
Then I saw another eye specialist to check my eyes. He said my eyes are not dry at all and that my light sensitivity is also normal. Perhaps I have improved but he insists ( he did not see me in May 2014 when I came back to SEA) that on his end, my eyes are fine.
My migraines are now once a week but there are days where my eyes feel pokey and I get panicked because I'm scared the next thing that will happen is my eyes will burn like they would when I was waking up in pain.
My GP thinks the burning eyes is a sign of inflammation.
I don't know when this will all end.
I'm 24 years old now. I still want to try to wear contacts eventually for sports only and perhaps my wedding once day! I just don't know if I should. Eye doctors tell me my eyes are healthy and showing normal behavior. I don't know if I should try contacts. I'm nervous. Or if i should every try lasek. The last eye doctor told me that I have this fear of dry eyes now and if i do lasek, I will keep thinking about it and that makes me not a candidate for lasek because it both a physical and emotional adaption and if the patient is already so nervous, it is not wise.
Sorry for the long message, it has been a long journey.
I have stopped drinking alcohol since Feb this year and found significant improvement in my pain too. If I do get better, I don't think I'll go back to being the social animal I was just because of the fear that what if I fall sick again. I hate it sometimes, watching other people live the life I once led without their bodies waging a war.
I live a very quiet life and I am still working on feeling complete relief. Sometimes I get very bored from the resting and not exerting myself.
That boredom drives me mad sometimes.
I sleep at 11 or 12 and try to wake up by 10 am.
Its still a work in progress on my end. AND I STILL DON'T know if I had dry eyes or not. Nobody gave me a clear answer but said yes my symptoms indicate dry eyes or eye strain and then they gave me eye drops up until the last eye doctor I saw. The last eye doctor I saw says I have no other eye issues. If I kept my mouth shut and he ran all the tests he would not even see a inkling of eye problems. He also took a picture of the nerve behind my eye to be sure. Hes worked at a headache centre in UK before returning to SEA so he was very very attentive and inspected my eyes for very long time and he is very confident that the tests results indicate nothing.
Yet I live in fear of days of burning eyes. Also my eyes don't feel completely strong, they feel ...its hard to explain.. they feel sensitive.
My GP thinks its my gut and that we need to find my triggers. Anyone else experienced all this? I wish my migraines had not chosen my eyes! I really really really want to have the flexibility of not wearing glasses because I am extremely myopic (600 in both eyes).
People tell me to dress up and feel good (because I used to be the popular kid who dressed up if I had to give myself a stereotype and everyone who knows me keeps encouraging me to go back to that image) but honestly I feel like ugly betty with my big thick glasses. I used to be a pro at putting on eye make up and doing cat eyes but without contacts I can't ensure decent symmetry of eyeliner on both eyes and end up looking like a panda. I just want to be a normal kid in my twenties and ofcourse I've learnt to calm down on the work hard, play hard lifestyle. Also I look kinda sick to people now. I wish I could hide it. Ive lost alot of weight (I was skinny to begin with) and I can't help it that the carbohydrates cause me to have a flare up.
I seriously feel like a slave to circumstance, rather than creating my own circumstance.
I pray and hope that if I get better, I want to help people with eye strain, dry eyes and migraines. I really feel for everyone who had to be in pain every day. I really want to do something but in order to help others, I need to recover.
Again, sorry for the long rant. And thank you if you have read this far!
With love and blessing,
Beige.
I've been wanting to make a post but I've been holding back because honestly being chronically ill takes up alot of energy. I'm always worried if I am spending my energy wisely as any moment my body could just fight back with debilitating pain.
My journey with eye pain started in March 8th 2014 (when the MH370 plane went missing), I live in South East Asia but at that time I was travelling to India to see my grandmother. A little background on me is that I'm a Type A personality and I spent most of my youth building up my resume so that I could ensure a good graduate program for myself after my bachelors degree, that meant I sacrificed a lot of family time such as Indian holidays, trips to India etc. However that said, I made a lot of time for networking, corporate events and I would usually de stress like any other girl in her young twenties by going to raves and clubs.
Before my trip to India in March, I was A-okay except for a minor episode of headaches in December 2013 (during my finals period) - I saw eye doctors then and they gave me pathaday drops and I was fine from January -February 2014.
I got two infections in March 2014, (1) E coli infection and (2) a food infection (where I ended up with a drip and I had fever for five days).
I wore Acuve Monthly from 2005 -2013. And changed to Acuve Daily from 2014. I stopped wearing contacts in March 2014.
After my food infection, everything went weird. I would have constant headaches. My eyes experienced: burning, dry sensation, light sensitivity, roughness, poking and squeezing sensation, and a foreign object.
I was told by several doctors in New Delhi that this was just eye strain and I would be okay in a month. Things did not look up even with the eye drops. However being Type A, I was persistently trying to keep my schedule in India going ( I was studying for my g-mat) and I had graduated from my bachelors in Dec 2013. Things were supposed to be looking up, I was happy to see my grandmother, everyone was telling me I was just stressed and this was not making any sense to me.
Well suffice to say a month passed and my symptoms got worst. After a month, I saw a Ayurvedic Eye doctor in India, and began treatments. I did the treatments for 3 weeks and returned to South East Asia at the end of May 2014.
I was keen to be home to see my parents, brother and my then boyfriend who were all shocked to see my appearance when I landed, I was looking down at the ground because I could not handle the lights, my face had pimples everywhere (I had really good complexion before this) and I looked like I was in a lot of pain.
However my eyes felt significantly different after the Ayur treatments despite the light sensitivity (my migraines continued). I was so in denial about my condition and trying so hard to go back to my old life that after a week back home - I tried on contacts and wore it for a dinner. BIG mistake. All my symptoms came flooding back but with more roughness in the eye.
I went to a new eye doctor in SEA (South east asia) and she said I had a abrasion in my eye. She gave me one week of steroids (Maxidex by Alcon) and then my vision became clear and the pain was less. However I started passing out from looking at the screen for an hour. My head and face hurt alot and my eyes hated light. While the roughness in my eyes stopped, I continued to have a foreign object feeling, light sensitivity, dry sensation. My eye doctors said I was mildly dry, but very little.
My dad realized the pain was not coming from outside the eye but behind it and speculated that we may need to see a neuro. Saw a neuro, she did a MRI, everything came clean. My neuro gave me gabapatin, xanax, and lexapro. I felt some pressure reduce after taking gabapatin but after that no effect. I took the meds for another 30 days (from July to August). Then gave up on the neuro. I started my masters in August too.
I went back to Ayurvedic treatments in August and my migraines stopped coming everyday in October 2014. Instead of every day, I would get them 4 days a week. Then in december it reduced even further. My eyes continued to give me grief as I hated looking at the screen and found it hard to keep up with emails, whatsapp messages and work.
I started using pandol patches on my head and near my eyes to keep distracted from the pain so I could so work. I also found coffee elevated the pain so what behind my eyes and also my migraine.
My boyfriend of 2 years left me and decided to focus on his career because I was expecting him to help me get through this and he wanted to take a back seat role. We used to be a power couple but he decided that I was expecting too much from him and that I was always upset with him for not trying to be more committed to us. I was 23 years old last year and he was 26. I guess he wanted the healthy fun verision. He also felt that he had failed me and that he could not do more in our relationship and that I deserved better. He always felt that I was too good looking for him (who cares) and smarter than him. It's funny that he thinks that but I was the one struggling to have a normal life, my skin was a wreck, I would never get good sleep and I would only start work at 1pm (and he was getting A-grade status in his work performance review). I hated life cause I could not do anything but sleep and work, sleep and work. There was so much work in masters, that i had to dedicate any time I was not resting to work. That meant I lost alot of my network, I knew my network was not all real friends but I had invested alot of time in building such a network to help me later on when I join corporate. I was really upset that everything was falling apart and then on top of that, I was dealing with a a break up.
I don't hold any grudge about whats happened with my relationships, just that my health going so down means I can't be a all-rounder and thats what I had thrived on previously.
I feel like now that Ive been sick, I can't be around people my age who party all day and work hard. They are destroying their bodies and its kind of exhausting being around them. Its their choice but so hard to be around the average twenty something, all they think about is the next party and drinking.
Anyways I digress.
I reached a point where I got better in January - Eyes and migraines. I felt ready to try contacts at the end of February (I had not tried contacts since June 2014) and it was okay the first 3 times. The fourth time in March, caused such a big flare up the next day in both eyes and head that I was left with another problem - waking up in pain.
I was miserable. I would wake up with sharp pain in my eyes and fatigue. And my eye lids would always feel heavy!!
I went back to my ayurvedic doctor and he put me on a treatment to get my eyes more wet and less rough and painful. Also, my light sensitivity came back but it was mild compared to before. From March to April I worked with my Ayurvedic doctor. I got really fed up in May as I was sleeping at 2 am and waking up at 12pm, it was ridiculous. And I would work all the way from 1pm to 1am everyday on my master's thesis.
I went to see my GP in May and he put me on Hydrocortison for a month, told me to go on a food elimination diet (i dont eat dairy, gluten, carbs, wheat and this means no roti or rice with my meals), and gave me supplements he had tried himself to see if they were effective. All of this was costly but my parents were willing to try it since I had been sick for so long. He also gave me a shot of cortison because I was crying and telling everyone I didnt want to wake up anymore because this was just a useless life of pain and it was way to hard to cope anymore. Ive thought about dying a lot. If you deal with pain everyday and losing your old life and being not able to do anything about it, you think about death.
After 3 days of doing what my GP said, I stopped waking up in pain. Touch wood!
Then I saw another eye specialist to check my eyes. He said my eyes are not dry at all and that my light sensitivity is also normal. Perhaps I have improved but he insists ( he did not see me in May 2014 when I came back to SEA) that on his end, my eyes are fine.
My migraines are now once a week but there are days where my eyes feel pokey and I get panicked because I'm scared the next thing that will happen is my eyes will burn like they would when I was waking up in pain.
My GP thinks the burning eyes is a sign of inflammation.
I don't know when this will all end.
I'm 24 years old now. I still want to try to wear contacts eventually for sports only and perhaps my wedding once day! I just don't know if I should. Eye doctors tell me my eyes are healthy and showing normal behavior. I don't know if I should try contacts. I'm nervous. Or if i should every try lasek. The last eye doctor told me that I have this fear of dry eyes now and if i do lasek, I will keep thinking about it and that makes me not a candidate for lasek because it both a physical and emotional adaption and if the patient is already so nervous, it is not wise.
Sorry for the long message, it has been a long journey.
I have stopped drinking alcohol since Feb this year and found significant improvement in my pain too. If I do get better, I don't think I'll go back to being the social animal I was just because of the fear that what if I fall sick again. I hate it sometimes, watching other people live the life I once led without their bodies waging a war.
I live a very quiet life and I am still working on feeling complete relief. Sometimes I get very bored from the resting and not exerting myself.
That boredom drives me mad sometimes.
I sleep at 11 or 12 and try to wake up by 10 am.
Its still a work in progress on my end. AND I STILL DON'T know if I had dry eyes or not. Nobody gave me a clear answer but said yes my symptoms indicate dry eyes or eye strain and then they gave me eye drops up until the last eye doctor I saw. The last eye doctor I saw says I have no other eye issues. If I kept my mouth shut and he ran all the tests he would not even see a inkling of eye problems. He also took a picture of the nerve behind my eye to be sure. Hes worked at a headache centre in UK before returning to SEA so he was very very attentive and inspected my eyes for very long time and he is very confident that the tests results indicate nothing.
Yet I live in fear of days of burning eyes. Also my eyes don't feel completely strong, they feel ...its hard to explain.. they feel sensitive.
My GP thinks its my gut and that we need to find my triggers. Anyone else experienced all this? I wish my migraines had not chosen my eyes! I really really really want to have the flexibility of not wearing glasses because I am extremely myopic (600 in both eyes).
People tell me to dress up and feel good (because I used to be the popular kid who dressed up if I had to give myself a stereotype and everyone who knows me keeps encouraging me to go back to that image) but honestly I feel like ugly betty with my big thick glasses. I used to be a pro at putting on eye make up and doing cat eyes but without contacts I can't ensure decent symmetry of eyeliner on both eyes and end up looking like a panda. I just want to be a normal kid in my twenties and ofcourse I've learnt to calm down on the work hard, play hard lifestyle. Also I look kinda sick to people now. I wish I could hide it. Ive lost alot of weight (I was skinny to begin with) and I can't help it that the carbohydrates cause me to have a flare up.
I seriously feel like a slave to circumstance, rather than creating my own circumstance.
I pray and hope that if I get better, I want to help people with eye strain, dry eyes and migraines. I really feel for everyone who had to be in pain every day. I really want to do something but in order to help others, I need to recover.
Again, sorry for the long rant. And thank you if you have read this far!
With love and blessing,
Beige.