Back from Arizona

[kimby2007]

Hi All:

I have just come back from Arizona this past week. I spent over a month at a pain/depression clinic. Fortunately my eyes proved ok in the Arizona environment. It tended to be more humid because winter is there rainy season. ALthough they couldn't help my pain, they tried Neurontin but it did squat, I did learn some coping techniques. One of the doctors their did recommend blood serum so I am going to give that a go. BTW have their been any studies on blood serum and Sjogrens. I don't want to get my hopes up too high but would be interested to know success stories with blood serum. Thanks all.

K

[lboogie]

Hi Kim,
GREAT to see you back here!!! And great to hear you had a decent time of it........here's to feeling better in 2009.

[gz9gjg]

Hello Kim,

Did you enjoy our great AZ winter weather? We have been having a string of sunny days in the low to mid 70s. Summers are brutal, but the winters make it worth it.

Lynne
Phoenix, AZ

[odydnas]

Welcome back Kim! I'm glad your eyes survived dry Arizona! Kudos to that! I hope your new coping techniques will help a lot. Keep us updated =)

[Rebecca Petris]

BTW have their been any studies on blood serum and Sjogrens.

This is one of the earliest studies done on serum for dry eye:

Treatment of dry eye by autologous serum application in Sjögren's syndrome

Kazuo Tsubota,a b c Eiki Goto,a b c Hiromi Fujita,a c Masafumi Ono,a d Hiroko Inoue,a Ichiro Saito,e Shigeto Shimmuraa b c

Correspondence to: Kazuo Tsubota, MD, Department of Ophthalmology, Tokyo Dental College, 11-13 Sugano 5 Chome, Ichikawa-shi, Chiba, Japan 272-8513.

Accepted for publication 26 August 1998


AIM To evaluate the efficacy of autologous serum application for the treatment of dry eye in Sjögren's syndrome.

METHODS The stability of essential components (EGF, vitamin A, and TGF-) in preserved serum were examined following preservation at 4°C and 20°C. In a primary clinical trial, 12 patients with Sjögren's syndrome were treated with autologous serum (diluted to 20% with sterile saline) for 4 weeks, and vital staining of the ocular surface was compared before and after treatment. The effects of serum on mucin (MUC-1) expression were observed in cultured conjunctival epithelial cells in vitro.

RESULTS EGF, vitamin A, and TGF- were well preserved for up to 1 month in the refrigerator at 4°C and up to 3 months in the freezer at 20°C. Rose bengal and fluorescein scores improved significantly from the initial scores of 5.3 and 5.6 to 1.7 and 2.5 after 4 weeks, respectively. The additive effect of human serum for cultured conjunctival epithelial cells showed significant MUC-1 upregulation on the cell surface.

CONCLUSION Autologous serum application is a safe and efficient way to provide essential components to the ocular surface in the treatment of dry eye associated with Sjögren's syndrome.

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There are of course far more studies of autologous serum for dry eye in general.