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I’m an 18 year old male. I’ve had bad dry eyes for a while now. I know it’s not as bad as it could be—I can still go outside and do normal activities. But I feel like a lot of my day revolves around how my eyes feel and they cause me a lot of discomfort during the day. I’m constantly aware of how they feel and a lot of the time I just went to go inside and lie down to avoid more discomfort. What exactly is bothering me the most varies. Sometimes they feel really gritty, sometimes they feel sore, sometimes very dry, sometimes I feel like I have something in them. I am happy to learn that I’m not the only one whose eyes are the source of so much discomfort (well, not happy that other people are uncomfortable, but, you get the idea). Any suggestions or insights into my problem would be very much appreciated. I don’t wear glasses or contact lenses. I see well and my vision tests have been normal. The problem has persisted through different environments and seasons.
It started suddenly about a year ago. The inner corner of my right eye would get really red with the blood vessels. From what I remember, my left eye would look fine, at least not as bad as the right one. But sometimes I was shocked at how red the right would get. Along with the redness, there was a lot of pain and dryness. It was very uncomfortable.
I went to an eye doctor. She said my vision was fine, so it wasn’t unbalanced eyesight. She said she saw a lot of dryness on the right eye. She also said that when I blinked it looked like my right eye was not closing right away. But on a follow up appointment she said that the lid closure looked normal. She also said it looked like my tears may be breaking up quickly, but we didn’t really talk too much about that afterward. We went over some general things that could cause dryness, but we didn’t come to a conclusion on what specifically was causing my problem. She gave me Systane lubricating eye drops and Relief P.M. ointment for the night. For me it’s always hard to tell exactly what the effect of a medication is. It certainly did not help the problem and sometimes it seemed like the drops and ointment made them feel worse, though I could hardly imagine how that could be. Especially the ointment. Sometimes my eyes would feel really sore and irritated the day after I used the ointment.
After those eye doctor appointments I have been trying a lot to fix the problem and what happens when I do what has become a bit mixed up. Though the corner of the right eye feels and looks a bit worse, now both of my eyes bother me. I am not sure how much redness is normal, but there are a lot of blood vessles visible all over, though this varies. I sometimes wonder if the left eye getting worse might be a side effect of the treatments I’ve been trying them. I’ve tried a lot of different eye drops. Sometimes they feel worse with the drops, sometimes they seem to feel a bit better. The most affective seems to be “Soothe” by Bauch and Lomb. They are individually wrapped and ‘persavative free.’ But with any eye drop my eyes still bother me a lot.
Though when it first started I didn’t really notice them feeling bad when I wake up, they now feel really dry when I wake up, which makes me suspect that something is happening over night. It’s usually the first thing I notice when I wake up in the morning. They don’t feel as bad when I wake up from what I’ve been doing lately, and I am afraid to not do anything. But I remember that if I just leave the eyes alone from treatments for a few days they would feel absolutely terrible and disgusting when I wake up. I heard doing a compress with Chamomile teabags might help, and I’ve tried it a lot before going to bed. They definitely seem to help with dryness when I wake up. During the day they are don’t seem as dry. But when I do the tea compress consistently, the eyeballs themselves don’t feel that dry, but my eyes seem very sore and irritated. This bothers me just as much as the dryness. I am not sure how related this is to the teabag treatment, but sometimes, especially when I get sweaty, there is a lot of oily substance on top of my eyelids. I feel like I need to wash my eyes, and when I do they feel better for a little bit. I have since stopped using the tea bags.
A lot of the time they feel much worse than when I went to bed and they hardly feel any better. I wonder if my eyes get dry at night, and the varying redness/irritation/dryness that happens throughout the day is a result of that. I wonder if my eye isn’t closing at night. The right eye being worse than the left seems to point in this direction (if it was something environmental or an allergy or deficiency or something, shouldn’t both eyes be the same?). I’ve tried taping, I’ve tried covering, and nothing seems to work completely, though they seem to might help a little bit. I wonder if these things aren’t doing a good job keeping the lids closed. It seems like no matter what I do, I can open my eye a little bit. If the opening is very small in one place of the eye, I think the difficulty of getting that one spot to stay completely closed may be the problem. Again, it’s hard to tell what the effect of one thing is because I’ve been starting and stopping several different things. I know I could do a better test, but that would require stopping everything for a some time, figuring out where my baseline is, and then seeing exactly how one treatment would affect that, and I am hesitant to do that because my eyes may get a lot more uncomfortable during that time.
I’m seeing another eye doctor next week, but after reading some stuff on here it seems like quick fixes are hard to come by and I am not all that optimistic. Hopefully, he’ll be able to offer some insight to what’s going on. After visiting this sight, I learned that I should probably get a better diagnosis and I hope he'll be interested in trying to give one. I’ve also been looking at some treatments on this site. In the mean time, does anyone have any insights or suggestions?
Thanks,
It started suddenly about a year ago. The inner corner of my right eye would get really red with the blood vessels. From what I remember, my left eye would look fine, at least not as bad as the right one. But sometimes I was shocked at how red the right would get. Along with the redness, there was a lot of pain and dryness. It was very uncomfortable.
I went to an eye doctor. She said my vision was fine, so it wasn’t unbalanced eyesight. She said she saw a lot of dryness on the right eye. She also said that when I blinked it looked like my right eye was not closing right away. But on a follow up appointment she said that the lid closure looked normal. She also said it looked like my tears may be breaking up quickly, but we didn’t really talk too much about that afterward. We went over some general things that could cause dryness, but we didn’t come to a conclusion on what specifically was causing my problem. She gave me Systane lubricating eye drops and Relief P.M. ointment for the night. For me it’s always hard to tell exactly what the effect of a medication is. It certainly did not help the problem and sometimes it seemed like the drops and ointment made them feel worse, though I could hardly imagine how that could be. Especially the ointment. Sometimes my eyes would feel really sore and irritated the day after I used the ointment.
After those eye doctor appointments I have been trying a lot to fix the problem and what happens when I do what has become a bit mixed up. Though the corner of the right eye feels and looks a bit worse, now both of my eyes bother me. I am not sure how much redness is normal, but there are a lot of blood vessles visible all over, though this varies. I sometimes wonder if the left eye getting worse might be a side effect of the treatments I’ve been trying them. I’ve tried a lot of different eye drops. Sometimes they feel worse with the drops, sometimes they seem to feel a bit better. The most affective seems to be “Soothe” by Bauch and Lomb. They are individually wrapped and ‘persavative free.’ But with any eye drop my eyes still bother me a lot.
Though when it first started I didn’t really notice them feeling bad when I wake up, they now feel really dry when I wake up, which makes me suspect that something is happening over night. It’s usually the first thing I notice when I wake up in the morning. They don’t feel as bad when I wake up from what I’ve been doing lately, and I am afraid to not do anything. But I remember that if I just leave the eyes alone from treatments for a few days they would feel absolutely terrible and disgusting when I wake up. I heard doing a compress with Chamomile teabags might help, and I’ve tried it a lot before going to bed. They definitely seem to help with dryness when I wake up. During the day they are don’t seem as dry. But when I do the tea compress consistently, the eyeballs themselves don’t feel that dry, but my eyes seem very sore and irritated. This bothers me just as much as the dryness. I am not sure how related this is to the teabag treatment, but sometimes, especially when I get sweaty, there is a lot of oily substance on top of my eyelids. I feel like I need to wash my eyes, and when I do they feel better for a little bit. I have since stopped using the tea bags.
A lot of the time they feel much worse than when I went to bed and they hardly feel any better. I wonder if my eyes get dry at night, and the varying redness/irritation/dryness that happens throughout the day is a result of that. I wonder if my eye isn’t closing at night. The right eye being worse than the left seems to point in this direction (if it was something environmental or an allergy or deficiency or something, shouldn’t both eyes be the same?). I’ve tried taping, I’ve tried covering, and nothing seems to work completely, though they seem to might help a little bit. I wonder if these things aren’t doing a good job keeping the lids closed. It seems like no matter what I do, I can open my eye a little bit. If the opening is very small in one place of the eye, I think the difficulty of getting that one spot to stay completely closed may be the problem. Again, it’s hard to tell what the effect of one thing is because I’ve been starting and stopping several different things. I know I could do a better test, but that would require stopping everything for a some time, figuring out where my baseline is, and then seeing exactly how one treatment would affect that, and I am hesitant to do that because my eyes may get a lot more uncomfortable during that time.
I’m seeing another eye doctor next week, but after reading some stuff on here it seems like quick fixes are hard to come by and I am not all that optimistic. Hopefully, he’ll be able to offer some insight to what’s going on. After visiting this sight, I learned that I should probably get a better diagnosis and I hope he'll be interested in trying to give one. I’ve also been looking at some treatments on this site. In the mean time, does anyone have any insights or suggestions?
Thanks,
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