State of Corneas

[kimby2007]

Hello everyone:

Just wanted to take a poll of what people's state of their corneas are. I have severely dry eyes from Sjogrens but weirdly enough perfectly healthy corneas. It has been super frustating trying to "prove" my dryness so I wondered how other people feel.

[Lucy]

Kcoffinger-We probably "feel" much like you do. Looking into our eyes isn't something we can do such as observing a joint or a broken bone, judging how severe a rash is etc. So, we must entirely trust what our doctor says and I doubt it's always 100% as they say. Besides, it's subjective and one doc could say one thing and one could say different and they both might be "right."

I've had lasik damaged eyes for 8 years and my lasik surgeon has yet to say much except I have "dry spots" on my eyes. I also have Sjogrens, but the lasik was the beginning for me. I've told him that my dry eyes was worse than having cancer and Sjogrens! It has caused much more pain than both of them together. He just looks at me like he's stupid. Or perhaps that look means he thinks I'm stupid. After all, how complicated is "my dry eyes are killing me?" Pretty straight-forward. Telling him I have to take Vicodin for the pain and have icebags over my eyes as much as possible to help with the pain.

I had a physical at my Gen Practitioner's office the other day and he took his light and looked into each eye. He said "wow, do you have a major floater in your left eye!" He mentioned he has a big floater and it bothered him, but mine was about the worst he has seen. Well, thank you eye doctor for never mentioning this to me. I know floaters don't hurt, but it just could be part of the reason I can't see out of that eye. I think an eye doc could get by with telling us just what he/she wants us to know. I also know that some docs will cover for other docs and not mention things that should be mentioned. That's all I have to say on that subject except.......there are a few eye docs who go the extra mile and do care. Lucy

[liz56]

Hi, kcoffiner and Lucy.

My corneas are a mess, because they have an unusually thin epithelium, and I have epithelial basement membrane dystrophy. I have to be ever so careful about them. It is nothing new, however. I remember being a kid and squirming when I would see people swim under water with their eyes open. I always wore goggles (practice for when hit age 40, and I am in goggles all night long!) swimming and felt that my eyes were dry and uncomfortable, though it became much worse in my 30s.

I am hoping that if I can get adequate treatment for whatever is going on with my thyroid that perhaps my corneas will get to a more normal thickness. I was not surprised when my first cornea specialist said, "My God, it's like rice paper." AACK!

--Liz

[dianat]

I have healthy-looking corneas.

[Rojzen]

my favorite topic lately

Great line of inquiry! I was just zigzagging my way to this issue in another thread, but never really got there. . .I needed this push, so thank you!

In my intuitive opinion, deduced from what has happened to my eyes since I started on Dwelle and FreshKote, there are probably many subclinical, and, certainly, subacute, abnormal states of the cornea. . .I believe that everyone with chronic dry eye suffers some degree of corneal change, even when the corneas consistently do not reveal staining on fluorescein testing. . .

I reached this conclusion when I started to experience tremendous changes in my comfort level, and in my TBUT, after 7 months on Dr. Holly's drops. My corneas usually showed no abnormality on slit lamp exam/flourescein, but something improved in my corneas, I believe, as a direct result of using the drops, and this, I believe, altered my tear film. Since I did nothing to improve my meibomian function (which is pretty dead), and I don't believe that the Dr. Holly drops can reactivate meibomians directly, I deduce that the drops' known action on the corneas, i.e., their tendency to draw unwanted fluid out of them, and help the tissue to bind to itself, and reconstitute its integrity, is what somehow helped me to generate more normal tears. . .I suspect that goblet cell restoration was involved, too. . .but I don't think this would have been enough to achieve what happened. . .i.e., I sense that my corneas were actively involved.

And so the state of my corneas, to answer this good question, is, in my view, better than before, despite the fact that they were not recently diagnosed as think or scratched, etc. . .

[Lucy]

Forgot to mention I have EBMD (epithelium basement membrane disease) which was to have started with the lasik.