Hello from CA High Desert

[WendyE]

Hello,

I'm a brand new member here, trying to soak up (ha!) all the information I can about dry eyes.

I'd been complaining to the eye Dr over the last 3-4 years that my eyes itch and burn, especially in Spring/Summer. He said it was just allergy irritation and gave me a teeny tiny bottle of allergy drops and sent me on my way. The burning has gotten quite bad of late to the point I feel like I had a huge crying jag the night before or something.

On this past Fri, I went to have an eye exam with a new doc and he did a test with some dye and blue light and said my tears are breaking up too fast because I have dry skin/not enough oil. He said the tears are also flowing away down the tubes too fast. He recommended I get the collagen plugs to see if I have any improvement and then see him again in two weeks.

My eyes have gone from severe burning/gritty feeling on Fri to dry/scratchy today. I've been trying some new drops since my old ones had BAC. I don't know if it's the new drops, the plugs or both. Today I've had a terribly weepy left eye and it's driving me mad.

Any questions you can recommend I ask the Dr when I see him again would be appreciated.

[Rebecca Petris]

Hi Wendy & welcome.

Sounds like your previous doctor was too focused on the trees (allergies) to see the forest (dry eye) growing up. Meantime seems like your forest was helped by too much BAK.

As for the new doctor... I guess my question would be that if he's diagnosed insufficient oil why not TREAT the oil problem? Doctors vary on this stuff but I think that corneal specialists in general would want to treat that before putting in plugs (if in fact plugs are warranted), so that you're not simply trapping bad tears on the eye.

Make your doctor talk to you about blepharitis and meibomian gland dysfunction at the next appointment... I'd suggest reading up about those things before the appointment. Since whatever you have has been going on for awhile I'd highly recommend picking up a copy of Dr. Latkany's book "The Dry Eye Remedy" which is a good way to get the 'big picture' and has excellent instructions on daily eyecare steps you can take to get things in better shape.

[WendyE]

Thank you for the welcome, Rebecca.

I was LOL at your forest and trees analogy. Well done. I've ordered a copy of Dr. Latkany's book amongst other things and will be asking even more questions when I go back. Last Fri hit me like a ton of wet cement and I couldn't think of anything sensible to ask. That and I had no idea there were so many different things to ask about! Who knew tears were so complicated?

I've gazed at my glands' pores under magnification and don't see any plugs along them. I can even see a sheen of oil coming from most of them. I don't know what my tear film break up time was. I'll have to ask about that as well.

I noticed in the DE YP's that there's a specialist in Valencia I could see if I'm not happy with the military doc I'm seeing now.

Thanks again Rebecca!