Sustained improvement!

[Sam1]

Hello all,
As a sufferer of non-lasik severe painful dry eye for the last 6 months, I've followed this forum fairly closely, and have often felt disheartened at the hopelessness of it all. Will I ever get better? Will it get worse as I grow older? Every day, I assess the pain, hoping for a sign that things might be on the mend. And every day, for a long time, the depression and hopelessness grew worse. Sometimes, reading about the pain that others write about here just made me feel worse.

So, in the interests of balancing things out with a good news story, I thought I'd announce that for two weeks now, I have had sustained improvement!
Here are some of the improvements:
Rarely feel pain during the day!!! Incredible. (some in the evening)
My severe depression has been replaced by unbound optimism!!!
Back at work part-time!!!
Can do without moisture chamber goggles for many minutes!!! (played volleyball the other day for a whole hour without too much difficulty)

I'm really really hoping the improvement continues.

Some things that I think helped me:
- Beating my eyedrop addiction (I went from 40-50 drops per day to chewing gum)
- Permanent lower punctal plugs (have had them for 2 months now)
- Taking sleeping pills to prevent depression-induced insomnia.
- Getting prescription glasses (even though the optos & opthos tell me I dont need them)

So I guess the point of my post is that things can improve even when it seems like they never will. Never give up, and try to be optimistic.

Good luck,
Sam

[cristinalatina]

Sam,

I'm so happy for you!

I keep asking myself the same questions all over again, every day. For me there's the additional "guilt part" of thinking that I went ahead with elective surgery, so must assume full responsibility for what I am going through. I still have trouble accepting that. But I'm so hopeful that we all will improve, at least slowly.

I'm hoping that your imrovement will continue indefinitely. Stories like yours give me hope.

Christina

[dianat]

Thanks for sharing your good news! We love good news here as well as optimism. Take good care.

Diana

[cherrybrandy]

Hi sam .pleased to hear you are getting better..question about prescription glasses.

Hi on your thread you said you got prescription glasses... I feel i need special glasses as i cant tolereate any sunlight at all and going into shops is a nightmare because of the lighting..I was wondering if i could get some reactolight glasses on the n.h.s. in the uk... do you think a note from my gp would do it...as i cant afford to buy em..like many others on this site ive had to give up work and go onto disability pension cos of eye probs..best wishes cb.

[Sam1]

Hi CherryBrandy,
I have so many pair of glasses its not funny... I'm not sure about disability benifits in the uk, but out of all the different glasses I've accumulated (including several pairs of panoptx), my favourites are ones that I make myself (although they have prescription lenses). The frames look like sunglass frames, but they are actually $18 uvex safety-glasses, and I found a model that fits very close to my face. I got prescription sunglass and reading lenses put in - its could be worth shopping around for this, as I got 3 different quotes of $110, $185 and $220 for the same thing! Then, I got thin (and comfortable) foam from a hardware shop, and glued it around the inside using silicon-glue (ok I lie, my mum actually did this bit - she's an artist, and is good at this sort of thing). Because the glasses fit so closely, you don't need much foam.
I hope this is of some help to you.
Best wishes,
Sam

[Elegiamore]

Good for You

Sam,

Keep up the good work! Your home made glasses are an inspiration to me. I was wondering what to do for outside prescription wear, now that I can't wear contacts with my dry eye and the wind makes it so difficult to go out of the house.

Like Cherrybrandy, I'm unable to work and splitting my healthcare funds between multiple conditions, but your creativity will keep my imagination sparked for the future.

Here's wishing we all have improvements coming our way - today was so good that I just realized I forgot to put in my drops!

Elegiamore

[cherrybrandy]

Hi sam thanks for the tip about foam round edge of sunglasses...

Hi sam ive tried your inventive approach to improvising sunglasses if you havent got much cash like me cos i had to pack in a great career cos of this like so many of us eh i got some foam lining from inside of crash helmet and it improvises .....I get annoyed when people seem to look at me funny when im all goggled up but at least i smile.....they dont know what excruciating pain lies within eh..... love cb