My TheraTears Experiment: Day 2

Okay, we weren’t expecting a breakthrough with the TheraTears eye health supplement on the second day, were we? Of course not. I just wanted to check in and tell a little more about my experiences with this pesky dry eye syndrome.

I noticed a loss of moisture in my eyes during the latter stages of pregnancy with my youngest child. It didn’t really bother me so much as being a minor annoyance. And the eye dryness wasn’t happening every day, just here and there.

After I gave birth, that’s when I noticed the loss of eye moisture more. My eyes would burn and sting. Looking at them, it was like seeing a map of the Mississippi River—only that instead of blue lines representing the waterways, I had lots of red ones.

For a while, I chalked it up to lack of sleep and poor eating habits. With a demanding baby, I couldn’t do anything about the lack of sleep, but I did try to take charge of my eating habits. First I stepped up my water intake. This seemed to help, but then didn’t. Next I tried giving up my daily chocolate and coffee habits because I’d read that caffeine contributes to dry eye syndrome. This actually made my problems worse. (Weird, huh?)

My dry eye problem got worse and I ended up going to see my family doctor, who just told me to get an eye exam and to take over-the-counter eye drops to relieve the symptoms. I tried several different eye drops, including a couple of the leading brands, a homeopathy brand from my local health food store, and one that had a thicker consistency than regular eye drops (to supposedly trap in moisture better).

None of these did much to help me. The homeopathy eye drop was the best out of the bunch, but even then my eyes were still in pain from the dryness. With all of the other brands, I used them once or twice and had to return them to the store for a refund.

At the eye doctor, I had my usual exam done (like I do every 2 years). It was a new doctor because my husband’s insurance had changed and we could get a better discount on eyeglasses at this place. (I’ve been wearing glasses for driving for the last 5 years; before that, my long-distance vision was awesome. Sigh.)

I told the doctor about the troubles I’d been having with eye dryness. She didn’t seem concerned, said that my vision was okay, and made light of how common dry eye syndrome was becoming. At the time, this felt reassuring. I really wanted to believe that my problems would fix themselves eventually (or at least diminish over time), so I took this doctor’s visit as a sign of better days to come.

But here I am today, posting on a blog I named Dry Eyes and Blurred Vision. This post has gotten kind of long, so I’ll save my worse ever dry eye experience for another day. Besides, it’s a doozy and really deserves its own post, I think. Anyway, thanks for reading this and I hope it helps you not feel so alone with your dry eye symptoms.