It never ends.

First I got corneal ulcers from excessive eye strain in May, now I can’t use contacts anymore because I have Dry Eye.

Been only wearing glasses for at least 2 months and my eyes were still so sensitive to cleaning vinegar, wind, dust, smoke, cooking, even cutting onions and I used to be immune, could cut onions all day.

My eyes felt so weird again driving to Kingman on Tuesday, almost like a headache.   It was still hot so I had the windows open since my truck doesn’t have AC and apparently that irritated my eyes.

Have to research a lot for my Sunnova client and do a lot of web work.  Everything is so hard.  Buggy software and lying corporations, so much screentime and eye strain.

Decided to stop by Mohave Eye because I cannot figure out the billing, I pay and pay and keep getting more and more bills for Medicare co-payments.  Since I have to use a magnifying glass with my glasses to read the bills, and then can’t use the hand I’m holding the magnifying glass to type, I just can’t figure it out.

For decades I’ve used the contacts you can wear for a month and when I started having trouble with reading, I used one lens for driving and the other for reading.  It was amazing how well that worked.

I am so incredibly frustrated by the many boxes full of papers that accumulated this year.  Citi Bank refused to credit back two disputes of fraudulent charges.  Lens.com $300 when the lenses got lost because their sucky website removed my PO box # from my shipping address and Greengeeks web hosting fraudulent $970 charge after I canceled.   More complaints to file …

Unisource autopay for electricity debited my account for almost $160 NOT owed and refused to return the funds to my account.  Filed a complaint with the state, but they REFUSED and sent a check instead.  Now I can’t find the check anymore.  The bank told me on Tuesday that companies routinely deposit or refund directly into accounts. WHY is Unisource allowed to operate like that?

At Mohave Eye I paid my bill, as I recall it’s not possible to get a statement indicating how payments were allocated.  It so sucks that you can’t pay after each visit because they don’t know how much Medicare pays. And when I had the ulcers I had appointments every few days and bills were for several visits.

I greatly appreciate Mohave Eye checking out my eyes without an appointment since I won’t be back in town for several weeks.

They took my blood pressure twice, it was around 130 / 200.  Unsurprising, I could feel my blood boiling after I got the Citi notice of the Lens.com refund decline in the morning and then when talking to the bank about Unisource.

So now I have chronic Dry Eye and got steroids, Fluorometholone 0.1%.

My dog went blind from undiagnosed Dry Eye in 2018.  I thought he had cataracts until I got a vet to run tests.  Too late.

… This medicine may increase the pressure inside your eye or cause other eye problems, including glaucoma or cataracts. Slow or delayed healing may also occur while you are using this medicine after cataract surgery. You will need to have regular eye exams with your doctor to check for these problems. …

How lovely.  Just like all the other Big Pharma products.

Since I tried for months without meds and it didn’t get better, and I have to keep working, I don’t see another option.

When I still used contacts I used my protective goggles when cleaning at the vacation rental I manage, cooking with onions or peppers, outside in the wind, dust, smoke …  But that doesn’t work with glasses.  Just ordered protective goggles with prescription lenses and hope they work since they’re for swimming.

A little research

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24479-dry-eye

Risk factors for dry eye disease

Some risks you can’t control. For example, the older you get, the more likely you are to develop dry eye. But other risks you may be able to manage through lifestyle changes or adjustments to your medications.

Talk to your provider if you have any of the risk factors listed below. You may be able to make some changes to lower your risk for dry eye or lessen bothersome symptoms.

Environment and lifestyle factors:

Things like the weather, how much time you spend looking at screens, contact lens use, smoking or allergies can increase your risk of dry eye.

Medications: Taking certain medications can increase your risk of dry eye, including some that treat depression, allergies, blood pressure, glaucoma, menopause and pain. Anticholinergics, oral contraceptives and systemic retinoids can increase your risk as well.

Medical conditions: Many different neurological conditions, eye conditions, autoimmune conditions and endocrine conditions can raise your risk of dry eye.

Surgeries: Some eye surgeries increase your risk of dry eye, including LASIK, cataract surgery and surgery on your cornea.

Lifestyle is my major problem. 

The constant STRESS, fighting the defrauding corporations, whether it’s to earn a living or my personal problems, healthcare, etc.  Corporations and governments defraud with impunity and the stress they inflict is killing me on so many levels.

I have to earn a living, and can’t survive on $298 social security.

I should be researching Dry Eye and feel like the best way to heal my eyes would be to avoid irritation and severely limit screentime.

I’ve only worked on the computer for a few hours and my eyes feel weird, pressure like I’m about to get a headache.  I suppose it could be from the eye drops, but it’s how my eyes often felt before I got the eye drops.

Have to keep going, have disputes to work on, and have income to earn.

A Holistic Approach to Treating Dry Eyes

Did a quick search and there’s a lot of info!

A 2018 article:

https://www.naturalmedicinejournal.com/blog/holistic-approach-treating-dry-eyes

… Chronic dry eyes affect as high as 87.5% (Fenga et al) of computer users and 73.5% (Uchini et al) of the elderly population. It is the number one vision problem that optometrists and ophthalmologists treat. Dry Eye Syndrome (DES) is becoming an epidemic because our work, play and socialization has shifted from working with our bodies, to working with our eyes.

Causes include heavy digital use, stress, age, sleep deprivation, menopause, allergies, medication (i.e. antihistamines, diuretics, antidepressants, birth control pills, beta-blockers and hormone replacement therapy), low humidity environments, lid disease and contact lens wear.

Staring at a computer or digital device decreases your blink rate by 60% so oily tears are not spread over the eyes to lubricate and nourish them. Combine this with stress or inadequate sleep which compromises the immune system. These tears end up coagulating in the meibomian glands with the unchecked bacteria flora.

Staring at a computer or digital device decreases your blink rate by 60% so oily tears are not spread over the eyes to lubricate and nourish them. Combine this with stress or inadequate sleep which compromises the immune system. These tears end up coagulating in the meibomian glands with the unchecked bacteria flora.

Traditional treatment for dry eyes has been: artificial tears, punctal plugs, prescription eye drops: Restasis and Xiidra, steroid drops, antibiotic drops, autologous serum drops (preparing eye drops from your own plasma) and managing prescription drugs that cause dry eyes.

The problem is that many of these treatments do not adequately address the underlying causes of dry eyes: inadequate production or poor quality tears, stress and clogged oily tear glands (meibomian glands). Also, many of these eye drops contain preservatives that further irritate the eyes.

Addressing the underlying cause of dry eyes improves the likelihood of making your patients more comfortable, while also treating the problem. Here is an integrative approach that you can use to help your patients with DES.

Use homeopathic tear stimulation drops instead of artificial tears or prescription eye drops, which may feel good when you apply the drops, but do not have a long-lasting benefit. Homeopathic tear stimulation drops trigger release of all three layers of your own tears: mucous, oily and aqueous. I have had wonderful success with both the Tear Stimulation Forte Drops and Women’s Tear Stimulation Drops by Natural Ophthalmics. It has helped patients with everything from Dry Eye Syndrome to Sjogren’s Syndrome. The women’s formula has two added ingredients which address dry eyes due to hormonal changes from aging.1 Homeopathic medications are all FDA approved, and are cited in at least two Materia Medicas with provings of their efficacy.

Unclog plugged meibomian glands that become clogged over time with the oily tears and bacteria. I use both an in-office and home heated eye massage to open the meibomian glands to get the tears flowing, and bacteria out. In the office I use the Mibo Thermaflow which is a therapeutic medical device that effectively liquifies the clogged oily tear ducts and evacuates bacteria by heating the lid safely and comfortably to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. For home treatment, I give patients an infrared heated mask which not only heats, but also promotes healing with the infrared heat. To treat the bacteria that is expressed with the heated massage, I prescribe Zocular foam, which is an okra-based product to decrease the bacteria and moisturize the eye lids.

Improve tear quality and quantity from the inside out with omega 3’s. Only 2 formulas have been clinically proven to do this: HydroEye by Science Based Health, and Ultra Dry TG by OcuSci, Inc.2,3

After that, the problem can be diagnosed using several tests including meibography (infrared imaging of meibomian oily tear glands using the Meibox), tear break up test, meibomian gland manual expression, and Phenol Red Thread Test or Schirmer’s Test. Once the diagnosis is made, the key is to treat the underlying cause rather than simply using artificial tears which don’t get to the root of the problem.

The link to the drops in the article isn’t working, so I did a quick search HydroEye:

https://www.sciencebasedhealth.com/HydroEye-Powerful-Dry-Eye-Relief-P43.aspx

30 day supply: 120 softgels

PRICE: $38.95

$500/year.


I’ll have to do a lot more research.

Unfortunately, my dog wouldn’t let me put drops in his eyes, so I didn’t research eye drops and I  used the steroid cream he got from the vet occasionally.  He rarely seemed to itch or otherwise be bothered by his eyes.  I did give him supplements including fish oil, mostly salmon oil.

I’ll continue with the steroids for a month as prescribed and see how my eyes feel then.

Hope my eyes will be better and if not, it’ll be a struggle to get tests to determine the root cause.