What Happened to my Eyes?

Several readers have asked for details, so I will do that here as family also reads my blog and it is a good way to update everyone.

In December I got a virulent straIn of pink eye. Such are the perils of being a teacher. Because this strain is so virulent they had me use some strong antibiotic drops. I got better, but then 2 weeks later I had a corneal abrasion probably from all the irritation of the pink eye. Antibiotic drops were again required. 2 weeks after that I felt like I was having pink eye again, so antibiotics again. What they don't tell you is that these antibiotics are hard on your eye tissues and tear glands, particularly if you are of menopausal age and have some underlying dry eye. I also work in a very dry building.

So a couple of weeks ago I again started having uncomfortable eyes, which escalated into really miserable. They put me on a 7 day course of steroid drops, being quite sure I would be better in a couple of days. I ended up staying on them 9 days and my eyes were twice worse when I was done. I personally think the steroids increased instead of reduced the inflammation. I am known by my doctors for having the opposite and adverse reaction to many things. By last Monday I was beyond miserable and quit wearing contacts at all a week before that. I cannot see well with my glasses and I am quite blind so in addition to the pain, I am in my own little world. Some of you know I am hearing impaired and depend quite a lot on lip reading. When you cannot see you cannot lip read. Add to all this that Monday I came down with the nasty cough bug going around. Tuesday I stayed home from work just to sleep and cry (no crying does not make dry eye feel better, it makes it worse as your eyes get puffy and red). By Thursday I was beginning to wonder how people live with this. I have over a hundred dollars into drops and some help and some seem to make it worse.

By Friday, I was beginning to figure out some crucial things. 1-Run a humidifier on high in every room where you spend time. 2-Sleep helps. 3-Low lights help. 4-Dim the computer screen and don't use it more than a few minutes at a time. Then I find a great website at www.dryeyezone.com that has given me so many good tips. Hot compresses work great. Using my drops in a different order helps. Not running the heater in the car helps. Anyway, I am some beter. I can tolerate this. The doctor said it is not curable but becomes manageable. I see light at the end of the tunnel. My new contacts will be here in about a week and should fit better and feel better enough so that I may be able to wear them a few hours a day. I am going to get new glasses so I can see better in the off times. I feel like I am going to live since my cold is better too. Things are looking up, although the world is still foggy until I get new contacts/glasses. I have been told this will be a long haul with 2 steps forward and 1 step back, with intermittant bouts of trouble.

If you know anyone with dry eye, send them to that website and please be patient. This painful condition causes great emotional distress. It causes anxiety and depression. I have gone from a few days of severe where you wonder how on earth people can live with it to moderate bouts and times where it is actually mild. Right now on a scale of 1-10 with 0 being symptom free I am a 1 for the first time in many weeks. I have not been above a 5 since Thursday. I think that prayer and good advice combined are working for me. I took 35 years of wearing gas permeable contacts from the second I woke up until I went to bed for granted. Now, I will be happy even if I have to wear only glasses and deal with mild symptoms. Until you have had severe dry eye (think of the pain you feel when you brush your eye with fabric and then imagine your eyes not making tears to soothe that) you really don't know how bad that nerve pain can make you feel. The only good thing that came out of it was inability to eat much and I lost a few pounds I had put on over the winter.

Thanks for all your concern. I got some stamping done this weekend and have my blog file renewed with photos to show you over the coming days.