Long time lurker - Seeking and Finding RELIEF

[sandrag]

Hello everyone!

This is my first post- however, I have been faithfully following this site for a while now, and I just wanted to say how incredibly grateful I am to Rebecca and to all the rest of you that have educated me so much - relative to this dry eye disease. I have related to so many of your stories and thought: This sounds just like my story, so I can understand and empathize with you all.

My short version story:
- Began wearing eyeglasses at the age of 7 for nearsightedness (1959)
- Stronger eyeglass prescriptions every checkup (1960 – 1975)
- Began wearing soft contact lens at the age of 24 (1976 – 2001) ending with a -11 prescription
- LASIK surgery at the age of 49 (2001)
As you can see, I fall into almost every category/cause of dry eye including long term soft contact lens use, LASIK surgery, hormone medication, severely myopic, large eyes, eyelid closure during sleep, allergy medication, long hours of computer use, former smoker, etc, etc, etc.

My worst symptoms:
- Constant Soreness, Burning, Inflammation, Extreme sensitivity to light
- Eyestrain, Tight Eye Muscles, Headaches, Neck Pain
- Infections, Blurred Vision
- Higher Order Aberrations – Halos, Starbursts, Ghosting, Glare, Extreme Contrast Sensitivity

Again, thanks to this site, I have this disease much better controlled. Through trial and error, I have found some very successful treatments, thereby relieving my worst symptoms. In hopes that this will inspire others, I would like to post my most effective treatments (and I learned of all of these from this site):
- Cold Compresses and Sleeping with a Humidifier
- Sleeping with Tranquileyes (eye mask) and wetting the foam inserts with Unisol Preservative Free Solution
- Second Best Treatment - DWELLE Eye Drops

MY MOST RECENT AND MOST SUCCESSFUL TREATMENT-----
- Custom Molded SCLERAL Contact Lens fitted by Dr GREG GEMOULES
A recent trip to Dallas, Texas and being tested and fitted by Dr G for these custom made therapeutic contact lens have provided me with the most relief ever from all of my worst symptoms – especially from the vision problems, which was my biggest concern.

Sorry that my story is so long, but I felt it necessary to express my gratitude to this site, and to motivate others to continue trial and error of the various treatments that are discussed here.

Thanks, Sandra

[browneyes]

Wow, that's great news! Do the scleral contacts completely eliminate your discomfort? Which hospital does Dr G work out of? Do you know if/how your lens differ from the Boston Scleral Lens (from the Boston Foundation for Sight)? I'm at the point where I'm considering sclerals also.

[sandrag]

browneyes: Yes, they pretty much eliminate all symptoms during wear. Upon removal, the symptoms almost immediately return, but I am hoping that the therapeutic benefits of wearing the lens eventually heals my damaged corneas.

Dr G works out of the Coppell Family Eyecare Clinic in Coppell, Texas. I am not sure how much they differ from the Boston Scleral Lens - I think that they are a little smaller version. You can go to Dr G's website which gives some information about them. You can also e-mail him - He answers any questions you may have.

Thanks, Sandra