Eye Injury Dry Eye

[tmurphy]

Has anyone got severe dry eye, long term, from an eye injury? I had a heavy object hit me in the eye almost a year ago. My eyes are getting worse daily. I work on a computer all day.

[Rebecca Petris]

Hi there and welcome!

My first thought is whether this is all about dry eye or recurrent erosions. It is common to develop recurrent corneal erosions after a corneal injury, and sometimes the erosions don't get diagnosed, especially if you *also* have dry eye. The cause and treatment for RCE is different from dry eye though many people have both. So I guess my question is whether you've been to a corneal specialist, or at any rate have you had rce ruled out?

Secondly... computers. There's lots of things that can be done to keep more comfortable at a computer when you have dry eye. Here's some:
- Make sure you're looking either straight out or (preferably) slightly downwards, never up. The wider open your eyes are, the faster they will get uncomfortable. May involve repositioning screen and/or chair.
- Use preservative free drops preventively, i.e. keep ahead of it, don't just react to symptoms
- Stay well hydrated
- Check room humidity
- Blink reminders! Blink rate drops dramatically when you're looking at a screen. There are some good tools out there. Try blinkingmatters.com for one example. It can use the camera to give you feedback on your blinking frequency.
- Moisture chamber glasses. If you're getting severely symptomatic, then regardless of the type of dry eye, having some kind of goggles or dry eye glasses can almost always help with comfort during screen use.

What have you been diagnosed with? What treatments are you using so far?

[tmurphy]

Hi Rebecca . . Thank you so much for your reply. I am new to this site and did not realize you replied. I have Salzmann's Nodular Dystrophy that is causing the dry eye My corneas look good. I have been to several opthalmologists. The last one was a dry eye specialist at Indiana University. She put me on Xiidra, which is helping a lot. She said the eye injury a year ago put the Salzmann's in an active mode where it is making more cells rapidly on my right eye that I injured. I avoid wind, if possible. It is windy outside so I wear goggles over my eye glasses to shut out the wind. I use a humidifier in my office. I try to use my standing desk to look down at my monitors. When I sit and work, I do look up a little on one of my monitors. I need to get a different desk so that I can always look down. I so appreciate your reply. If you know of any groups for Salzmann's, please let me know. The dry eye doc suggested the sclaral lens. I am doing okay right now, but may get them in January when my insurance resets