An important message for new dry eye readers

[Lucy]

--Rebecca, please (re)move this if not appropriate, or if not appropriate for this category.

This board is increasingly busy. I'm sure you know, more than anyone! As time goes on, it becomes apparent the wide variety of causes of dry eyes. Lasik (other refractive) surgery, age, menopause, Accutane, Sjogrens and more and more often, no one knows why.

The part I want to address to everybody is that refrractive surgery is never a solution for the problem. This is simply put. Refractive surgery may be a possibility after dry issues are addressed and in the future after people have a chance to come to terms and possibly heal what ails them.

We are seeing more and more younger people who are frantic with dry eyes, or visual problems and they want to have lasik or PRK. Period. They think (and why wouldn't they think so) this could solve all their problems.

Many of the people here with even severe dry eyes will get better from pallative care, or further medical intervention, changes in their body systemically either through meds or just time passing.

Refractive surgery has been flaunted in the media as the greatest thing since the gastric bypass. Or vice versa. Unfortunately, refractive surgery opened the floodgates for me a long time ago. All bad. Not the norm, but here I am--along with a lot of others with post-op complications.

If you are having dry eye problems, vision problems and dry eyes, illness which may turn out to be Sjogrens 7 years down the road--wait before you consider having laser or PRK. Once and if you can bring your medical problems under control, you may be a very good candidate for lasik or PRK. Waiting could mean the difference of having a job or not being able to work anymore. Waiting could be the difference of having painless eyes not needing contacts or glasses--or painful eyes that neither glasses or contacts will fix.

This is meant to be a message to someone flipping through DryEyeZone wondering if their eyes are really "dry." I doubt the ordinary person just looks up dry eyes and does a search. There is a reason you landed on this site. Just please don't add more misery to your already increasingly intolerable dry eyes.

OK--off the soapbox. I just did 30 min on the treadmill and am wound up.
Remember--Don't do it. At least not NOW. Wait for a more "meaningful time in your life."

Lucy

[neil0502]

I'll add my two cents here (should come as no surprise to anybody!):

During that 6.5 years that I was treated with the BAK-containing eyedrops (and watching my eyes go from relatively okay to severely dry), my doctor was telling me that I really needed to get improvement in my underlying vision through refractive surgery.

At his urging, I worked with one of the area's most reputable refractive surgeons to discuss laser options. I also traveled to Tijuana, Mexico a few times to see another world-renowned refractive surgeon for evaluation for either intraocular lens (cataract) or implantable contact lens surgery. If I HAD the surgery, Phase II of the plan was to either perform a LASIK or Limbal Relaxing Incisions to correct the remaining astigmatism.

I actually had the implantable contact lens on order and the surgery scheduled, but ... something just didn't feel right. I had a horrible feeling that these surgeries would make the ocular surface stuff worse.

My doc wanted me to believe that my contact lenses were the likely cause of all of my ocular surface problems and that--in addition to helping my underlying condition--having these surgeries would likely END my dry eye problems. I wasn't convinced.

It's "painfully" clear to me now that =I= made the right call in scrapping the project. I ALWAYS maintained that--unless I knew what was causing my dry eyes--I wasn't going to endeavor surgeries that are, themselves, KNOWN to CAUSE dry eyes.

My take-away message from all of this--as always--is: this stuff sucks. I know it does. But we COULD be WORSE. Try to breathe. Try to get the worst of the pain under control. Try to find coping mechanisms that allow you to regain some of what this problem takes away. Try to quiet your mind to allow yourself to think clearly. This will help in avoiding desperate--and potentially devastating--grabs at quick fix solutions.

I've said it. Lucy's said it. Rebecca's said it. Others have said it. I'm leaving it again here--like Lucy said--for "posterity:"

WE COULD BE WORSE. All of us. I guarantee it. When my doc was pushing for the cataract surgery, I said that I was very concerned about the surgery making me worse. He responded with, "You're disabled and a patient at the Pain Clinic. How much worse could you get?"

I always resented that response, but I'm glad as he## that I didn't listen to him.

All the best,
Neil

[Richard_R]

Prospective Refractive Surgery Patients,

Please remove this post if inappropriate.

Listen to what Lucy says. I had elective RK surgery 18 years ago to correct 6.0 diopter nearsightedness. Before the surgery, my eyes worked great except that I had to wear glasses. Immediately afterwards, I developed severe dry eye problems. Doctors tell me to put in drops etc. I have done everything they tell me but nothing helps. I am resigned to a life of painful, dry, red, irritated eyes. There is no longer fun in travel, work, reading or any other task that you are probably taking for granted. My professional career was cut short and my life was transformed from one of being constantly on the go to one of being stuck in the house most all of the time. I achieved 2 college degrees before the surgery and now can hardly read.

Taking a chance with refractive surgery is a COLOSSAL MISTAKE. DO NOT DO IT. It has already destroyed many lives including mine.

Now listen one more time from someone who is stuck in a LIVING HELL. DO NOT TAKE A CHANCE ON ELECTIVE REFRACTIVE SURGERY. Consider yourself one of the lucky ones that has been warned ahead of time of the massive risk. Oh Lord, how I wish I had listened. If I can keep just one person from this horrid trap, at least some good can come from my mistake. Even if the chance for complication is small, is it really worth the risk?

Richard.

[kakinda]

Hi,
(adding my euro 2 cents) on behalf of Keratos, I'd like to say that even if I'm not a lasik-victim myself I represent a few of them regularly in Europe. However, I am a trigeminal neuralgia rhizotomy disaster so I really know what severing nerves does...
Lasik is, of most of times, an aesthetic consideration (not always) but which causes huge damages.
It's a bit like the army in peace time, most people get out of fine, or somewhat OK but some went under the tank or something and nobody saw them again... meaning I believe a lot of surgeons still believe they're entitled to a few "mistakes", just a small percentage right (and what's putting a few drops a day, right?).
Lasik certainly represents a lot of money but I haven't heard that much of it is actually spent on repair of corneal nerves research, on restoring the functional unit the eyes, lids and the tears are, etc...
So basically, the FDA and similarly health agencies in Europe authorise something that causes terrible side-effects without even asking these people to find solutions for the side-effects or to invest in fund to deal with this... especially not knowing the long term side effects are.
not very bright is it? especially knowing that patients and health agencies will pay the bill.
I want to congratulate Lucy for her courage to testify about her "mistake". Usually, Lasik victims feel responsible and rather not talk (my experience within Keratos). But it seems to me that, some people are not doing their job in informing people about this (not just lasik surgeons, but ophthalmologists, health agencies, etc) and "lasiked-persons" should be the last to feel guilty or bad about their choices... if at all they should feel so.
It's surprising that people like Lucy are doing their job instead, just like people like Neil are informing others on BAK.
It's amazing how many people are considering LASIK because they have Dry Eyes and can't stand their contact lenses anymore... and were advised by docs to do it.
I receive at least 4 or 5 messages like that per week and there are tons posted in French forums. It looks like we are going to have millions of DE fellow sufferers...
while the ocular industry is not that active in seeking solutions for "side-effects".
Take care
K
PS for Lucy: may I post your message on the Keratos website (when i find the time)?

[Lucy]

Kakinda, please feel free to post this where ever you feel it's worthwhile. I'd like to add in case one may misunderstand, that personally I've never felt the lasik outcome was my fault. Not once have I felt "guilty." Remorse, maybe. Guilty, never. I know many with bad outcomes do take on the burden of guilt, which I think is totally self-defeating. I do, however, wish I'd never considered lasik, never walked through the lasik doc's door, wish he'd thrown me out by the ear and said no. That day has changed my life more than any other factor in my many years of life. None of it for the better.

[Guest]

I'm with Lucy on this one.

I had Lasek (the less invasive option of Lasik (so they said)) on 20 October 2005. I haven't worked a great deal in the past 12 months due to the induced dry eyes.

I would NEVER recommend this surgery to anyone - bear in mind, like those of you considering this, I was a perfect candidate also. Don't believe the hype.

My surgeon is thrilled with my outcome - so he says, I would love to swap eyes with him for a full day so that I can understand why I don't share his enthusiasm.

Whilst this site is dedicated to dry eyes (and I certainly have those, recurrent corneal erosions have slowly eroded the sight in my right eye to the point i have terrible ghosting), just spare a thought of all the other possible side effects also (starburts, halos, ghosting just to name a few) - and yes, I have these as well.

Sure there are successful outcomes, but are there really as many as we are led to believe - I think not.

Stick with your glasses, at least they correct your vision, try living with an irregular astigmatism or ghosting or halos or starburts or wearing a mask every night to sleep, or putting drops in every hour during the day and waking every few hours of a night to put some more gel in so that you can avoid a corneal abrasion in the morning or spending countless dollars at the drug store just looking for a little product that will take the pain away for a few minutes. If you can't imagine any of these don't even consider it.

Just spend 30 minutes having a read through some of the posts on this BB there should be enough to convince you that refractive surgery is not what it is cracked up to be, and if you go ahead with it, I wish you all the best - you are going to need it.

Stick with your glasses, I wish I did.

Ian