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Hi all,
The following is an excerpt from a long piece I am writing about computer use and dry eye. A more complete post will be made in a few more weeks.
I’ve learned a number of lessons about dry eye over my 5+ years with the disease. Here are some of the lessons I’d like to share with you:
There is no cure for dry eye
Dry eye is very different from other diseases. If you have pneumonia from a bacterial infection, for example, you could take antibiotics for a few weeks to kill the bacteria causing the infection. When the bacteria is gone, you would function normally again and be considered “cured” of your pneumonia.
With dry eye, there’s no single thing (or even combination of things) that you can do to get rid of dry eye forever. Whatever you do to make your symptoms better, you’ll have to keep doing that thing regularly until some better treatment comes along. Then you’ll do that new treatment regularly. Thus, we don’t talk about “curing” dry eye, but of “managing” it. The better your routine is, the better you are managing your dry eye.
For most people on this board, they do many things as part of their routine. And medication just might be one part of your routine; other aspects might involve lifestyle changes (such as going on a diet or exercising) or adapting to your environment (such as wearing moisture chamber goggles or using a humidifier). Only you can find out what works for you.
Dry eye is a progressive disease
If left untreated or under-treated, dry eye will get worse. Not only will it get worse, it will get irreversibly worse to the point that you can’t get back to normal again. Unfortunately, you probably won’t know if you’re at that point until it’s already too late. Therefore, it’s imperative that you attack dry eye as aggressively and quickly as possible to keep it from getting any worse.
Generally, knowledge about dry eye is poor among doctors, but is steadily improving
The first ophthalmologist I saw just diagnosed me with “chronic dry eye,” which as you’ll see later isn’t really a specific diagnosis. If you don’t have a specific diagnosis, your doctor is throwing darts at a dartboard while blindfolded – some treatments might work, but most will probably be ineffective. And the second ophthalmologist I saw, while he gave me a specific diagnosis of meibomian gland dysfunction, he COMPLETELY missed my aqueous deficiency.
When you combine the fact that dry eye is progressive with the fact that many doctors are largely ignorant about dry eye, it becomes SUPER IMPORTANT that you find a great doctor as soon as possible. In a later section of this thread, I’ll discuss how to increase your chances of finding a better doctor and then how to evaluate that doctor at your initial visit.
You can’t get better unless you remove the source of your problem
In the case of dry eye caused by chronic computer use, the sources of your problem are electronic screens. While you may feel better after developing a good routine (usually consisting of one or more medications as well as habitual life changes), it is easy to regress to an earlier, worse state if you continue to use electronic screens as much as you were before you got dry eye.
The reality of your situation is that you can’t truly improve until you significantly reduce your screen time. If you continue to use computers, smartphones, and tablets at a high rate, you will risk worsening your symptoms, or getting new symptoms altogether. Case in point: I started getting pain in my eyes in mid-July 2017 after spending too much time on the computer over the previous weeks. I ignorantly believed that my symptoms wouldn’t change or worsen as long as I kept up my routine. I was wrong.
No matter how much you’ve think you’ve “tried everything,” you haven’t tried everything
It’s easy to believe that whatever expensive treatment you’re trying next is your last possible chance to get better and that there’s nothing else left to try. I felt this way before my first Lipiflow treatment and at various other times in my 5+ years with the disease. And just when I’m about to resign myself to a lifetime of feeling bad, I learn about treatments that I haven’t tried yet.
I believe no doctor has all of the answers for you. By doing your own online research as well as seeking out second opinions, you can find out about new treatments that might work for you. I’ll share some of the treatments that I know about (many of which I have tried myself) later in this post, but keep in mind this is just a sample of what’s out there.
Dry eye is a three-headed monster
Ever since I had to quit my office job because of dry eye, I’ve thought about how dry eye disease is a “three-headed” monster. It affects you in three negative ways:
For these reasons, I STRONGLY recommend that people who have computer-induced dry eye consider other careers that don’t involve as much computer use. If you switch careers early, you may have lower future income, but at least you can minimize the effects of #1 and #2.
Again, consider my example: right now I’m paying over $5,000/year for dry-eye related medical bills. If I had quit my job within the first year of my symptoms (before they got significantly worse), chances are my current expenses would be closer to $1,000/year. This difference of $4,000/year means that over a 25-year period, I’m paying $100,000 more in medical bills than if I had quit earlier. Given that I was probably was going to have to quit at some point anyway, I should’ve made this decision much earlier. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but now that you know you’ll need to quit someday, you can use this information as valuable foresight and save your eyes TODAY and prevent your future medical bills from escalating too much.
The following is an excerpt from a long piece I am writing about computer use and dry eye. A more complete post will be made in a few more weeks.
I’ve learned a number of lessons about dry eye over my 5+ years with the disease. Here are some of the lessons I’d like to share with you:
There is no cure for dry eye
Dry eye is very different from other diseases. If you have pneumonia from a bacterial infection, for example, you could take antibiotics for a few weeks to kill the bacteria causing the infection. When the bacteria is gone, you would function normally again and be considered “cured” of your pneumonia.
With dry eye, there’s no single thing (or even combination of things) that you can do to get rid of dry eye forever. Whatever you do to make your symptoms better, you’ll have to keep doing that thing regularly until some better treatment comes along. Then you’ll do that new treatment regularly. Thus, we don’t talk about “curing” dry eye, but of “managing” it. The better your routine is, the better you are managing your dry eye.
For most people on this board, they do many things as part of their routine. And medication just might be one part of your routine; other aspects might involve lifestyle changes (such as going on a diet or exercising) or adapting to your environment (such as wearing moisture chamber goggles or using a humidifier). Only you can find out what works for you.
Dry eye is a progressive disease
If left untreated or under-treated, dry eye will get worse. Not only will it get worse, it will get irreversibly worse to the point that you can’t get back to normal again. Unfortunately, you probably won’t know if you’re at that point until it’s already too late. Therefore, it’s imperative that you attack dry eye as aggressively and quickly as possible to keep it from getting any worse.
Generally, knowledge about dry eye is poor among doctors, but is steadily improving
The first ophthalmologist I saw just diagnosed me with “chronic dry eye,” which as you’ll see later isn’t really a specific diagnosis. If you don’t have a specific diagnosis, your doctor is throwing darts at a dartboard while blindfolded – some treatments might work, but most will probably be ineffective. And the second ophthalmologist I saw, while he gave me a specific diagnosis of meibomian gland dysfunction, he COMPLETELY missed my aqueous deficiency.
When you combine the fact that dry eye is progressive with the fact that many doctors are largely ignorant about dry eye, it becomes SUPER IMPORTANT that you find a great doctor as soon as possible. In a later section of this thread, I’ll discuss how to increase your chances of finding a better doctor and then how to evaluate that doctor at your initial visit.
You can’t get better unless you remove the source of your problem
In the case of dry eye caused by chronic computer use, the sources of your problem are electronic screens. While you may feel better after developing a good routine (usually consisting of one or more medications as well as habitual life changes), it is easy to regress to an earlier, worse state if you continue to use electronic screens as much as you were before you got dry eye.
The reality of your situation is that you can’t truly improve until you significantly reduce your screen time. If you continue to use computers, smartphones, and tablets at a high rate, you will risk worsening your symptoms, or getting new symptoms altogether. Case in point: I started getting pain in my eyes in mid-July 2017 after spending too much time on the computer over the previous weeks. I ignorantly believed that my symptoms wouldn’t change or worsen as long as I kept up my routine. I was wrong.
No matter how much you’ve think you’ve “tried everything,” you haven’t tried everything
It’s easy to believe that whatever expensive treatment you’re trying next is your last possible chance to get better and that there’s nothing else left to try. I felt this way before my first Lipiflow treatment and at various other times in my 5+ years with the disease. And just when I’m about to resign myself to a lifetime of feeling bad, I learn about treatments that I haven’t tried yet.
I believe no doctor has all of the answers for you. By doing your own online research as well as seeking out second opinions, you can find out about new treatments that might work for you. I’ll share some of the treatments that I know about (many of which I have tried myself) later in this post, but keep in mind this is just a sample of what’s out there.
Dry eye is a three-headed monster
Ever since I had to quit my office job because of dry eye, I’ve thought about how dry eye disease is a “three-headed” monster. It affects you in three negative ways:
- Decrease in quality of life
- Increase in medical bills
- Decrease in future earnings potential
For these reasons, I STRONGLY recommend that people who have computer-induced dry eye consider other careers that don’t involve as much computer use. If you switch careers early, you may have lower future income, but at least you can minimize the effects of #1 and #2.
Again, consider my example: right now I’m paying over $5,000/year for dry-eye related medical bills. If I had quit my job within the first year of my symptoms (before they got significantly worse), chances are my current expenses would be closer to $1,000/year. This difference of $4,000/year means that over a 25-year period, I’m paying $100,000 more in medical bills than if I had quit earlier. Given that I was probably was going to have to quit at some point anyway, I should’ve made this decision much earlier. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but now that you know you’ll need to quit someday, you can use this information as valuable foresight and save your eyes TODAY and prevent your future medical bills from escalating too much.
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