Finding your own "system"

It started in my 20s. I couldn’t tolerate lenses very long. I thought it was due to my being a very high myope (I won’t say how high – let’s just say: much more than -10 in both eyes). After some years of being told only rigid, hard lenses were possible to give me a break from very thick glasses, soft lenses started to be made for my prescription. I was able to wear them for a handful of hours only, then had to go back to glasses.

I luckily did research and found out that I wasn’t a good candidate for laser surgery for my myopia – I would not be able to change my vision to glasses-free. My reluctance to have surgery if I would still need glasses in hindsight saved me from what might have happened. At that time, no one talked of the side effects if you already had dry eye syndrome. However, also at that time, no one really knew how to help me. I continued to wear heavy glasses and lenses when I could. For decades my eyes felt scratchy. When I did try an eye doctor they couldn’t see I had a problem. So I was alone.

I tried sclerals with a well known scleral fitter and they didn't work for me. Was told the set I was given was the only ones that could work for my eye shape. They didn't work out. Too many gas bubbles.  Despite being well known the person I went to didn't seem to want to out a lot of effort in, though it was the start of me being told and understanding I have very large eyes from my myopia which was likely causing the dry eye. For the eventual cost it was a disappointing experience. Hence,  I returned to using soft lenses. 

I tried drop after drop. At some point I had a routine of eye drops that I thought was helping then one day I decided to scrap all of them. I stopped taking eye drops and to my surprise, after years of being dependent on them, after a couple of weeks of adjustment, with no drops - my eyes felt the same! It was as if they’d become dependent on the drops in a bad way. Either way: I discovered without them or with them my eyes still felt scratchy.

7 years ago I had a sports accident. I lost my sight for a couple of hours in one eye but miraculously it returned. I was however left with floaters. Now I had very high myopia, dry eye, and floaters. I also now once a quarter get iris inflammation in the damaged eye.

The eye doctors had no solutions. I went to a specialist in another country for laser treatment on the floaters but there are so many that I had to also adjust to living with that. Clouded vision in one eye and two scratchy eyes. However I had sight and I had resilience.

5 years ago, I went back to my doctor here and something changed. He does not believe floaters cause and issue and does not believe in laser – so solving this stayed my problem. He did however start to take my dry eye more seriously and enabled a prescription to hyprosan and a night ointment that give me relief when I need it. I also have monopex for when I get the iris inflammation. I felt supported. At this same time, I started taking probiotics for rosacea I was getting. At some point I stopped the probiotics and suddenly had a light-bulb realisation that they were helping my dry eye and my floaters!! I still can not really explain it but when I don’t take the probiotics my symptoms flood back, I see the floaters constantly and I have scratchy eyes. On the probiotics – the symptoms are reduced – both the floaters and the scratching.

My regime today is the drops and ointment from the doctor, a heated night mask (just a USB mask from ebay that I plug into one of those battery charger blocks you can have around to recharge a mobile or other) and probiotics. I am probably 70% like a person without all the problems. I still have the huge glasses but I can tolerate lenses for 10 hours.

I found out by chance - and later found research that shows I’m not alone on this – that I can tolerate only low water content soft lenses. If I have lenses with high water count my eyes suck all the water out of them. So, these are the only lenses I’ve managed to tolerate and I have a patient optician!

I hope to inspire some of you to keep going, no matter what.

Alexandra

Nordics