Dry eyes?

[sarah b]

HI again, my son has only been dianosed last week, but we ve noticed him rubbing his eyes, which we never really noticed before, and he mentioned that they are dry, I m not sure if I read that this is part of KC. We re off the docs this afternoon and was going to ask for something for this. Do any of you use anything for this?

[Andrew MacLean]

Eye rubbing is a well documented symptom of keratoconus, but it may also exacerbate the weakness of the cornea. when I find my eye 'itchy' I flood it with Clinitas Soothe (you can get this over the counter at some pharmacies, or you can buy it on line).

I don't always wait until I want to rub my eyes before I use clinitas. Actually i try to dose my eyes before I get the urge to rub them.

Clinitas make other products: Clinitas Hydrate (a gel that I use at night; it keeps my eyes from drying out and probably stops me needing to rub them during my sleep.) and Clinitas Ultra 3 (if I amnot using a contact lens I use this in place of Soothe).

Others use Systane or carbomber based products like Hypromelose.

All the best

Andrew

[GarethB]

Sarah,

Your son may have always rubbed his eyes and it is only because you are now aware he has an eye problem that you notice everything he does concerning his eyes as any parent would.

It is also heyfever season and many of us suffer with other alergies to. I don't have the classic heyfever symptoms of runny nose, sneesing, eye irritation. Instead I just get a mild itch on one the margins of my eye lids and they feel worse first thing on the morning, possibly because pollen has settled on my pillow and I've just spent the nite with my face on them. I use anti histamines and that removes the mild iritation.

With discipline we can educate ourselves so that wehn we get the urge to rub our eyes we do soemthing different like using eye drops. I have also found Optrex Actimist Eye Spray to give very quick relief for the times flodidng my eyes with eye drops or a cold compress impractical. You just close your eyes and spray it directly onto the eye lid.

[rosemary johnson]

I've tried various things for dry eyes (induced either by office aircon or anti-glaucoma medications) and never found any of them much good.
Best thing I find for eyes feeling dry is a large glass of water - drinking it, I mean, and making sure I keep generally well hydrated. Drinking plenty of water (or juice, but mainly water - rather than, or in addition to tea or coffee.)
When I have tried putting things in my eyes, I've found plain idotonic saline solution as good as anything else.
People do vary in their general metabolism, tear consistency, tendency to dehydrate, etc - so some people will find one product good, others another, and people like me are unimpressed by any of them.
Incidentally, one of the things that makes my eyes really sting and itch, particularly in warm weather such as recently, is if I'm outside doing something energetic and get sweat running down my forehead into my eyes and filling them up with too much salt! If that's a problem, a tennis-player style headband may help. (Mostly when I'm in that position these days, I'm wearing a jockey helmet - and when I get off the horse and take my helmet off, the inside padding is soaking!
ROsemary

[sarah b]

We got some eye drops off the doctor, hypromellose, will give this a try and see how it goes, guess its trial and error, will also try the spray as he already said I can't take that to college!! Will also tell him about the drinking plenty of water.

[Andrew MacLean]

sarah

I keep my artificial tears in the fridge, not because this is the advice given on the packet but because when my eyes do get itchy the experience of having the chill refreshment of eye drops is just wonderful!

Andrew

ps I don't know if it is still the case, but at one time I was told to be careful not to use hypromellose on too long term a basis

[GarethB]

Sarah,

Have you got a copy of the students leaflet?

The college has a legal obligation to make adjustmenst to your sons condition as unfortunatly it is long term and as such we get protection under the Disability Discrimination Act. So that might mean taking medication into class too, no teacher would dare disallow a stuent to take an asthema inhaler to college with them.

It may well help with your sons studies as one thing I forgot to mention in an earlier post, when you concentrate on reading, using a computer, playing comuter games your blink rate goeas down so less tears being flushed over the eyes. Many of us overcome this at work by taking regular short breaks every 30 minutes. Now I'm not suggesting for one minute your son walks out of class to rest his eyes but by simply looking at a distant object such as briefly glancing out the window or round the room can help reduce the ye strain. Tutors need to be aware of this so prevent your son getting into trouble for failing to pay attention at all times. If required they should also provide handouts which might be in a font easier for your son to read so he isn't looking at the white screen teachers favour projecting the information they want to get a cross. There is something to be said for the good old fashioned black board which produced less eye strain.

On the eye drops front, I found I had to try half a dozen before I found one that worked best for me. That said you do need to give tham a chance to work so I tried each for a week or so.

Hope this helps.

Gareth

[lars]

Has anyone who had dry eyes never had problems with his lids? I was told I now have a mild case of blepharitis because of my dry eyes and when I usually get up in the morning, or even during the day, there are some small white pieces (I don't know how to perfectly translate this) on my lids. I think that the base of the lids is getting dry and that's how these pieces get in the lids.
Any suggestions about cause, or how to cope with this before I go to the doctor?