Is my dry eye journey over? Or just on a stop over?

[faithlies]

The relief is incredible, and at the same time, it's nice not to be worrying about my eyes constantly

I've been having problems since January. In Feb, I was diagnosed with viral conjunctivitis and left with terribly sore, dry and red eyes for about two months, no matter what drops or gels I used.

I realised I couldn't tolerate the preservatives in the gels and drops I had been prescribed. I then spent weeks relying on celluvisc/refresh without preservatives and a water spray.

By this time I had also developed severe floaters in the most inflammed eye. I thought I'd never wear contact lenses again and developed an allergy to my contact lens solution.

I attended the eye hospital three times in absolute despair, thinking I had anything from a detached retina to herpes virus (had that twice in my eyes over the years) to goodness knows what else.

My optician said I also had some blocked glands, I did warm compresses but they didn't seem to help much.

But gradually, things improved. I'm now back in contact lenses and (joy of joys!) my eyes are usually very clear and white. I was getting burning on removing my lenses for a couple of weeks but that has also gone.

I honestly think it took this long to get the plethora of drops and gels with preservatives out of my system.

Maybe I have slightly dry eyes anyway (my optician thinks this is likely) though I have not had a schrimers test to check this.

I am just so thankful to everyone on this forum for providing such a wealth of information. I think eye problems can be one of the most worrying, distressing things to deal with.

I thank you all and hope you all find some relief. Whether my relief is temporary or not, I'll still be here, trying to help others and popping up on threads.

Thank you again, from the bottom of my heart

[odydnas]

I am so happy to hear that you are doing better!! Congrats! I was wondering...what did you do that helped?

[faithlies]

Thank you -- I'm really happy too!

The only problem I seem to be having now is that my eyes seem more sensitive than they were, like if I get something in my eye like an eyelash, it goes a lot redder than normal.

What have I done/used? To be quite honest, my eyes are better when I'm putting NOTHING in them.

I think I was overloaded with drops -- antibiotics, steroids, gel tears, celluvisc.

I now keep some vials of refresh without preservative and a water spritz spray handy, but haven't even used them for about two weeks

[yoganut]

Faithlies:

I'm happy that you're doing so much better. It's interesting that you say that you were on drop overload. Since being diagnosed in Sept 07 I've tried every drop under the sun. My lastest RX is for Lotemax steroid - which at the very least hasn't helped at all but also seems to irritate my eyes, I've been experiementing, I'm supposed to use them 4x per day, I've been going a couple of days without and eyes seem to be getting slighly better but then I do put a drop of Lotemax in, they get goupy and very sore.

My husband who usually never critizes me - said he thinks I've messed up my eyes more by keep putting all these different drops in. I'm so fed up I'm thinking no drops/steroid may be a good thing for a while to let my eyes calm down. I've tried the warm compresses - like you did absolutely nothing to help my glands produce more oil - in fact the opth answered no to my question about whether I have MGD or clogged glands or occular rosacea. So if I don't have those problems, what is my problem?
Please keep us updated.