Red Eyes

[Ken C]

Im glad i found this site. Im 27 yrs old and Ive been suffering with red eyes for several years now. It began with wearing contacts for 4yrs. The last 2 years ive been using Visine LR, i wish i knew the long term effects before i started using them daily to relieve my dry itchy eyes. I was pouring the drops on my eyes upto 6 times daily, and just recently the last 2 months ive weened myself off a little to 1 drop twice a day, my eyes still look like hell after i wake up from a nap. On my days off of work i stay indoors afraid of any social interactions with ppl because i feel like a freak. Its horrible when i run into friends in a brightly lit room and they assume im stoned, its fustrating. My social life is horrible, its hard to talk to girls now, i dont get any phone numbers at parties anymore. Ive taken this semester off of school so that i have time to visit the doctors about my problem. So far after 5 visits to different doctors and two optometrist over a 8month period of no answers, i finally recieved an appointment with one of Kaisers opthamtomalogist next week,Seems like they will never get better. Ive read almost every post here in search of hope.

I read somewhere about cotton balls soaked in skimmed milk over the eyes, does that work?

[odydnas]

Hi KenC. Welcome to DEZ. While I do not have red eyes, I def understand your social situation (I'm 24 and no longer have a social life) and your frustration about visiting doctors. It sounds like you may have allergies. It may be a good idea to visit an allergist for some testing. Also, I think that many people here will agree with me that you should stick to preservative free eyedrops. I like Systane a lot. I also suggest getting Dr. Latkany's book, it is sold at the dry eye shop. And since you took the semester off, it may be a good idea to take a trip to Dr. L in NY. He is a dry eye expert and he was the first doctor to figure out what my problem is. Good luck and PM me if you need anything, esp if you wanna complain about eyes killing social life!

[Ken C]

thank you for your reply and understaning my condition. I will look into buying Dr. Latkany's book. Ive stopped using Visine LR and been dropping systane and theara tears into my eyes last 2 days, but my eyes are still red. I hate this. My friends all went to the lakers game at staples center today, and i stayed home and sulked, i wish i had tears to cry with. I hope i can work saturday without visine.

[Rebecca Petris]

Dear Ken,

Welcome to DEZ. I'm really sorry to hear what you've been through.

The last 2 years ive been using Visine LR, i wish i knew the long term effects before i started using them daily to relieve my dry itchy eyes. I was pouring the drops on my eyes upto 6 times daily, and just recently the last 2 months ive weened myself off a little to 1 drop twice a day, my eyes still look like hell after i wake up from a nap.

Ken, hopefully you have been told this by at least some of the doctors you've seen but just in case... Here are some hard truths.

You are not going to see any improvement with your eyes until and unless you go cold turkey on Visine LR and stay off it for good. Even then, you may be looking at a lengthy and challenging recovery. The kind of dosing you describe may or may not have caused severe permanent damage but as a minimum it's done a lot of short-term harm.

Redness relievers (vasoconstrictors) are notorious for their 'rebound' effect - the more you use them, the redder you get (despite any immediate whitening). Furthermore Visine LR has a horribly toxic preservative.

So there's a number of things to tackle probably, including:
- Finding out why your eyes were red in the first place. Allergies? Untreated dryness? Irritation from the contacts? All of the above? And dealing with all those things.
- Breaking the visine dependency
- Dealing with the damage that the visine has done

The more information you can give us, the better.... we'll do all we can to help. You're going to need a skilled and committed doctor to help you through this. And sorry to be so blunt (tough love?) but you're going to have to be willing to tough it out without Visine if your eyes will have a hope of ultimately recovering.

Hang in there!

[odydnas]

I can't believe I just gave advice to a Lakers fan!!! It's ok, ya'll got killed tonight

But seriously, I did not go a single Warriors game this season. I even missed their free fun open practices.

Oh, and I had forgot to mention, you should stop wearing your contacts if you're still using them. I know it SUCKS, but contacts can be making your situation worse.

[Ken C]

I have stopped wearing contacts for the last 2 months. Im feeling very comfortable in my glasses now. I feel you on missing your team's games, its so fun to have a drink with friends and watch a game at the stadium. I will try to be brave and stop the visine, i did stop for a month in january, but i fell back in the cycle after staying home for so long, sometimes the urge to feel normal for a night is to hard to resist. But I do understand the consequences of using those evil drops, thanks for both of your advice's; it is much appreciated and i will keep you posted on my condition.

[Jeanne D]

Hi Ken!
I'm not sure what to suggest, but here's an article about red eyes, that you may find helpful. Take care.

http://www.medterms.com/script/main/...ticlekey=20057


Jeanne

[TARYN]

red eyes

Hi Ken,
I have meibomian gland dysfunction and start the day with steaming my eyes and cleaning the lids with Sterilid. Then I use Patanol followed by a cold compress and it really brightens the eyes and get rid of the redness and inflammation. I also use Biotears supplements.

[calcan]

welcome to the club

I overused vasoconstrictors for years; if I'd known the long-term side effects, I wouldn't have relied on them so much. I know how self-conscious you feel about the redness - it's made me social phobic. This summer, I have to attend a retreat with my coworkers, and we are sharing rooms - I am afraid I will scare the daylights out of my room-mate when she sees me first thing in the mornings, because that's when the redness is worst, and it's downright frightening!

Did your doctors prescribe steroids to help reduce the inflammation a bit? I know how frustrating it is, because the various doctors I've been to have said there isn't much I can do - I've been diagnosed with allergies and blepharitis. I think I may also have ocular rosacea.

I really rely on putting an ice-cube over my eyes every morning, which is a natural vaso-constrictor. I use bio tears and genteal gel, and take omega 3-6-9 supplements. This seems to help, even though it's not perfect. It's better than when I was relying on Naphcon-A and Visine all the time and all the rebound congestion I got with that.

I hope this helps somewhat - just know that you are not suffering alone.

[Ken C]

I overused vasoconstrictors for years; if I'd known the long-term side effects, I wouldn't have relied on them so much. I know how self-conscious you feel about the redness - it's made me social phobic. This summer, I have to attend a retreat with my coworkers, and we are sharing rooms - I am afraid I will scare the daylights out of my room-mate when she sees me first thing in the mornings, because that's when the redness is worst, and it's downright frightening!

Did your doctors prescribe steroids to help reduce the inflammation a bit? I know how frustrating it is, because the various doctors I've been to have said there isn't much I can do - I've been diagnosed with allergies and blepharitis. I think I may also have ocular rosacea.

I really rely on putting an ice-cube over my eyes every morning, which is a natural vaso-constrictor. I use bio tears and genteal gel, and take omega 3-6-9 supplements. This seems to help, even though it's not perfect. It's better than when I was relying on Naphcon-A and Visine all the time and all the rebound congestion I got with that.

I hope this helps somewhat - just know that you are not suffering alone.

My reg. doctor had me on Naphcon A, he even said it was okay to use longer than 3 days. It made my eyes white as snow for like 1/2 an hour then redder than ever. But no, havent seen opthomalogist for steroids yet, Im kind of weary about putting anything at all in my eyes now and just try to let my body handle it. wish i didnt have to work and see poeple though. The ice thing doesnt work at all for me, i think it might make my eye redder.Thanks for your suggestions, maybe ill run to the store and buy the omega 3-6-9 supps.

[Ken C]

Hi Ken,
I have meibomian gland dysfunction and start the day with steaming my eyes and cleaning the lids with Sterilid. Then I use Patanol followed by a cold compress and it really brightens the eyes and get rid of the redness and inflammation. I also use Biotears supplements.

cool Thanks, Ill try that, wear do i find patanol or what is it?

[calcan]

another thing

My reg. doctor had me on Naphcon A, he even said it was okay to use longer than 3 days. It made my eyes white as snow for like 1/2 an hour then redder than ever. But no, havent seen opthomalogist for steroids yet, Im kind of weary about putting anything at all in my eyes now and just try to let my body handle it. wish i didnt have to work and see poeple though. The ice thing doesnt work at all for me, i think it might make my eye redder.Thanks for your suggestions, maybe ill run to the store and buy the omega 3-6-9 supps.

I know you're not thrilled about putting anything else in your eyes, but I also use Viva preservative-free drops (they have Vitamin A in them) as well as the b-12 drops available on this website. I feel that they have healing properties that abused eyes need (by abused, I am referring to the years of Naphcon-A drops use). The Viva drops are availabe at the drugstore.

As for facing people, some of us on here wear slightly tinted glasses, to sort of mask the red eyes. Besides, light can also aggravate the situation.

Don't worry - things will get better, now that you've stopped the other eyedrops.

[baddabingtim]

Comin off the vasoconstrictors is hell - I used them for over 20 yrs every day - never heard of dry eye - just was looking for normal eye - eventually my eyes did become dry and even with the vaso's you can feel the grit -

Your options -

1. It will take at least 3 months to get semi-normal with no red drops
2. Go to eye doc and see if your eyes are dry
3. You will need medicine such as lotemax to ease the eye
4. You will need lots of genteal gel to help the eye feel good for a while

Eventually you will get better - I know had red eyes when I was in high school and now I just went to my daughters high school graduation

[melaniem]

Hi, i used otc drops 4 bout 4 years, i have stopped cold turkey for 1 month now and feel depressed, i am looking into tinted glasses untill i see improvement! tim can i ask have u stopped cold turkey? Wot do u use? My eyes seem mildly dry, its mainly the red veins that are just always there argh.

[Ken C]

Comin off the vasoconstrictors is hell - I used them for over 20 yrs every day - never heard of dry eye - just was looking for normal eye - eventually my eyes did become dry and even with the vaso's you can feel the grit -

Your options -

1. It will take at least 3 months to get semi-normal with no red drops
2. Go to eye doc and see if your eyes are dry
3. You will need medicine such as lotemax to ease the eye
4. You will need lots of genteal gel to help the eye feel good for a while

Eventually you will get better - I know had red eyes when I was in high school and now I just went to my daughters high school graduation

Thanks for the info. My eyes always felt irritated in highschool all the time, but were not red, the redness started getting really bad after i used visine to make my eyes feel better from wearing contacts lenses. At first it wasnt that often that i dropped them in, but then slowly i had to put the drops in every morning in order for my eyes to clear, then it became a habit. I understand i did this to myself. that stuff should not be on the counters. Its been 5 days off the vaso, and i know i have a long way to go. So your eyes eventually cleared im assuming?