It Took Awhile...
It took months to be seen by a CDE specialist, after referral by my ophthalmologist. Everything vision related is so compartmentalized that - apparently - only a CDE specialist (in my area, it's treated by an optometric physician) can treat this issue. That's a little frustrating, but once seen, treatment has been thorough and mostly effective.
Hi
- Glad to hear you were finally able to connect with a specialist. Was there anything surprising or cool that you learned from your most recent visit? I'm sure the community would appreciate any insights you've made during your treatment. - Cody (Team Member)
Yes. I learned that I didn't actually lack enough tears, rather my tear production is low quality (missing the proper lubricating oils - Meibomian Gland Disease). This may be caused by other medications I take (most likely culprits are Alpha blockers), or simply genetic or old-age deficiency.
Prescription cyclosporine drops (Restasis) has helped about 50%, plus frequent lubricating drops (I find the best OTC drops for me are "Retaine MGD" ). My CDE specialist has suggested adding autologous serum drops to the regimen, but they are (1) very expensive and not yet Medicare approved, and (2) must be stored and transported frozen which makes them next to useless. I do not suffer from plugged meibomian glands, so gland probing would not be helpful.
PS: Anyone know why random emojis keep popping up in messaging, especially after quotation marks, like the "yellow winking face" above? Or, more importantly, how to stop them?Wow, what an insightful visit then. Seems like that once you knew that your tears lacked the oils that it needed, you were able to tailor your treatment to tools that actually help. Must have been such a relief to finally be pointed in the direction of something that made a difference!
I can also understand not finding it feasible to transport a frozen medication. What a pain that must be to keep it cool enough on the go. Fingers crossed they will develop a solution that doesn't need to be frozen soon.
P.S. In regard to the "smiley faces" - those are generated when you use a sequence of characters like " and ) following each other, or : and ). To stop them from changing to an image, you can add a space between them. So something like ' " )' shouldn't change the text. Sorry about that! I'll go ahead and manually fix it.
Best,
Cody (Team Member)
