Is dry eye your first major disease? How are you coping?

[hopeful_hiker]

Hokucat I also feel the same way about things or some situations that used to worry me out of proportion. However, I wish I did not have to go through this painful experience to learn that. Interestingly, now I am never bored and that is not a good thing. I am constantly either tolerating my eyes or worrying about them. I had a few instances about 2 months back when I started to feel boredom again and it was exciting because it meant I was starting to become free from my thoughts and sensations. My brain no longer was constantly occupied. Now, I have bad stretches of days again and I don’t know why.

I also recognize the same thoughts about being too young. I imagined that some sorts of diseases would be inevitable once I become a senior but I did not imagine being suicidal from pain and discomfort at the age of 28. I feel like if I was older, I would at least have a good life to look at. My life was just starting in a way. Good work projects popped up, friends, great partner, tackling old phobias, and then this hit.

[hopeful_hiker]

Alix totally hear you on the “no cure” thing. So many treatments and treatment combinations... I would argue though that people get cured or go into remission. For example, LASIK dry eye sometimes goes away. Hormone disbalances get fixed. Lid abnormalities corrected. Or the cycle of inflammation gets stopped somehow.

[Shell259]

hopeful_hiker i do think the tinnitus has lessened over the years yes. I used to have quite bad issues with being around any sort of noise, but do not anymore (unless it’s obviously way too loud)
although it did get briefly worse recently, it seemed to be getting slowly worse for a while, but I put it down to being really stressed over my eyes, then my left ear started screaming at me which it has never done before, this sent me in to a bit of panic as worse tinnitus would be all I needed! I thought it might be linked to me starting sertaline (because of the eyes) so I stopped taking it.. luckily it seems to now be back to normal. I needed the sertraline, but the last thing I needed was increased tinnitus.

[Guest]

I didn't really have any ongoing health problems until dry eye/RCE. I've had several acute injuries/illnesses, but nothing that has required ongoing treatment like this has. I'm 34 years old, and had what I call the "I'm young! I'm healthy!" insurance plan until this year, because I never needed more than basic coverage until I was diagnosed this year. I also feel like a lot of people (mostly at work) think I'm exaggerating how badly it affects me - my friends and family who have seen me during an erosion understand how bad it can get.