Chronic Dry Eye Patient Spotlight: LeTysha

Prior to being diagnosed, I had heard of dry eye before and even knew someone who had it. But I still didn’t really understand it.

How I was diagnosed

My journey with chronic dry eye just popped up one day randomly. I was working a temp job that involved working with binding documents. So there was a lot of paper particles and dust down there. My eyes just got to the point where they hurt constantly. So I finally made an appointment with the eye doctor.

After looking at my eyes and telling him my symptoms, he said that I had dry eye. It didn’t take long for him to diagnose it. We also tried eye plugs to keep the eyes moist. My eyes didn’t like the eye plugs, because they kept falling out. So treatment for chronic dry eyes is quite the experience.

The most difficult part of dry eye

The most difficult part is making sure that I always have enough of my prescription eye drops. Every year my insurance makes a big deal about my eye drops, and I have to do a pre certification. It takes a long time to get approved, so I need to make sure I stay on top of that. In the beginning, I didn’t know they did that. So when it happened, I had to go without my eye drops for a few months, which was really hard and painful.

Trying to treat it

I have tried several different types of both over-the-counter and prescription eye drops to help. That was quite a process to find the right one. Some of them burned or just didn’t work at all. I finally found a prescription eye drop that works well after a few years.

Talking to others

Talking to others about chronic dry eye is quite interesting. They really don’t understand what it is. It’s actually a common disease that many people probably have, especially women.

Honestly, it’s not easy talking to others about any chronic disease you have. Most people don’t really understand or comprehend, because they haven’t dealt with it. It’s all about educating people about chronic dry eye and bringing awareness to it.

What I wish others knew is that chronic dry eye is a very painful disease, and is about more than just taking any eye drops.