Tweet
Went to see another eye doc today, this time at a public hospital. Whilst no miracles occurred, it was the first time I felt the doctors were making some form of attempt to help me. I think the different experience was partly the doctor (he actually had some interest in ocular surface disease) and partly the clinic (they are a public hospital, so it's not profit motivated and the way they run things allows for delays for them to spend time with emergencies or complicated patients). For the first time I didn't leave wanting to burst into tears.
I probably spent about 20 minutes all up with three different staff members. The first asked questions and did the test where they put the paper strips in the eyes. This test showed that I had plenty of tears. This surprised me because I had thought that to have such clinically severe dry eye as well as complications like corneal ulcers etc, I would have to have had a significantly reduced volume of tears. Anyway, I saw the doctor who spent quite a long time with me, and the senior doctor also came in to see me. They thought that it was probably: I didn't close my eyes properly when blinking as well as sleeping with eyes partially open, as well as ocular rosacea and mild blepharitis. I know that the damage to my eye surface is concentrated on the bottom part of the eye which I guess fits with the incomplete eye closure, and I do believe I suffer from some mild facial rosacea so the ocular rosacea diagnosis seems reasonable. I'm on doxycycline which I have tried without results before but previously I was only given a low dose for a few weeks from a very reluctant doctor. And I was also given FML for 6 weeks. FML doesn't work miracles for me in the past but 6 weeks worth should give me at least some temporary relief. I was actually given a follow up appointment for a change so I do hope that if these treatments aren't helping they will try something else for me.
There are a few things that still bother me:
-No doc has ever examined inside my eyes despite the fact that I developed extremely severe floaters at the same time as I developed severe eye pain. I also have deep whole of eyeball pains and halos and starbursts which make it difficult to drive at night, I think this warrants a full eye exam but no eye doc seems to think this is justified. I don't want to push them on this issue as from past experience it just seems to make them annoyed. Plus this current doc is an external eye disease doc anyway.
-The doctors keep talking about "flare ups" as if they think whenever I see them I am just having a self limiting flare up which will eventually die down by itself. My eyes do not operate like that at all. My eye problems are consistent both from day to day and throughout the day and night, with a gradual worsening that is in no way self limiting. This makes me feel that I have perhaps still been misdiagnosed, as many of you talk about ocular rosacea/blepharitis flare ups and I do not experience this. Also, if I have incomplete eye closure at night I would expect my eyes to be much worse in the mornings, which is not the case.
-I've been told to use lacrilube at night, I don't understand how this is different from the genteal gel which I already use, only the lacrilube is much more expensive.
Your thoughts would be appreciated?
I probably spent about 20 minutes all up with three different staff members. The first asked questions and did the test where they put the paper strips in the eyes. This test showed that I had plenty of tears. This surprised me because I had thought that to have such clinically severe dry eye as well as complications like corneal ulcers etc, I would have to have had a significantly reduced volume of tears. Anyway, I saw the doctor who spent quite a long time with me, and the senior doctor also came in to see me. They thought that it was probably: I didn't close my eyes properly when blinking as well as sleeping with eyes partially open, as well as ocular rosacea and mild blepharitis. I know that the damage to my eye surface is concentrated on the bottom part of the eye which I guess fits with the incomplete eye closure, and I do believe I suffer from some mild facial rosacea so the ocular rosacea diagnosis seems reasonable. I'm on doxycycline which I have tried without results before but previously I was only given a low dose for a few weeks from a very reluctant doctor. And I was also given FML for 6 weeks. FML doesn't work miracles for me in the past but 6 weeks worth should give me at least some temporary relief. I was actually given a follow up appointment for a change so I do hope that if these treatments aren't helping they will try something else for me.
There are a few things that still bother me:
-No doc has ever examined inside my eyes despite the fact that I developed extremely severe floaters at the same time as I developed severe eye pain. I also have deep whole of eyeball pains and halos and starbursts which make it difficult to drive at night, I think this warrants a full eye exam but no eye doc seems to think this is justified. I don't want to push them on this issue as from past experience it just seems to make them annoyed. Plus this current doc is an external eye disease doc anyway.
-The doctors keep talking about "flare ups" as if they think whenever I see them I am just having a self limiting flare up which will eventually die down by itself. My eyes do not operate like that at all. My eye problems are consistent both from day to day and throughout the day and night, with a gradual worsening that is in no way self limiting. This makes me feel that I have perhaps still been misdiagnosed, as many of you talk about ocular rosacea/blepharitis flare ups and I do not experience this. Also, if I have incomplete eye closure at night I would expect my eyes to be much worse in the mornings, which is not the case.
-I've been told to use lacrilube at night, I don't understand how this is different from the genteal gel which I already use, only the lacrilube is much more expensive.
Your thoughts would be appreciated?
Comment