Tuesday, September 15, 2009

My Worst-Ever Dry Eye Experience

Like so many others with dry eye syndrome, I go through those days where my eyeballs feel like sandpaper and the burning sensation is almost enough to drive a person mad. My worst-ever dry eye experience wasn’t to do with those symptoms, though.

The day I couldn’t cry was an absolute horror for me. It was a shortly after having my second child, who refused to sleep anywhere but on me (and to this day we’re still working on that—ugh!). No one ever mentions the difficulties of adding a second child to the mix. Not being able to give my first child the attention she deserves was such an awful feeling. So, with the lack of sleep and the “guilty mom” feelings I had going on, a good cry was in order.

But that cry never came.

That day, I learned how necessary tears are to grieving. Dry-eyed sobs do not get the job done. My lack of tears was extremely frustrating and could even be described as painful. I felt like my head was going to explode from trying so hard. I kept struggling to release some tears, but they never came that day.

So that’s my worst-ever dry eye experience. I hope to never feel that pain again. Today is day 5 of using TheraTears, a nutritional supplement. I think there’s an eye drop variety of TheraTears, but I’m hesitant to use it because of my negative experiences with eye drop medications (they cause my eyes to burn, even the ones without preservatives). Anyway, it’s day 5 and I’m not feeling any better. I’ll keep taking the capsules until the bottle runs out (in about a month) and see how my eyes are doing then.

What’s been your worst-ever episode with dry eye syndrome?

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