DO ANY OF YOU HAVE CRONIC DRY EYES? I EVEN USE RESTASIS AND NO HELP, TRYED EVERY EYE DROP THERE IS. NOTHING HELPS, I DO FISH OIL I WAS TOLD THAT COULD HELP. I DONT HEAR OF MANY PEOPLE WITH LYME WITH THIS PROBLEM SO JUST WONDERING IF ANY OF YOU CAN RELATE. ALSO HAVE DRY MOUTH. ANY SUGGESTIONS??? THANKS LAURIE
Posted by Tincup (Member # 5829) on :
Welcome to LymeNet.
Many people with Lyme and tick borne diseases have dry eyes.. and many have a dry mouth too. It is actually very common.
I don't know of any special fix for it... I just live with it and do eye drops when I can.
Are you having any other eye problems? I will assume you've been to a good eye doctor?
Hope you find something that helps!
Posted by ElaineC (Member # 9857) on :
Yes, I have this all the time also. Like Tincup said, I just keep using the eye drops and bathing my eyes when I can.
Posted by DakotasMom01 (Member # 14141) on :
You may have Sjogrens, since you mentioned the dry mouth too.
Learn all you can abt Sjogrens as it can distroy your teeth, affect your breathing, skin and organs. http://www.sjogrensworld.org/
I was recently having a lot of problems with breathing through my nose and the ENT asked if I had the dry eyes too. I said yes. The scan showed only swelling and inflamation, no blockages. Everything was dehydrated.
The ENT asked if I heard of Sjogrens? I said the rheummy said it "only" causes dry eyes. He said NO, it can do alot of damage.
Please, don't assume its Lyme, meds or a herx.
Posted by TF (Member # 14183) on :
I had very dry eyes and very dry mouth from lyme and co-infections.
Once I was successfully treated for my diseases, both of these went away completely.
In the meantime, the dentist gave me a special mouthwash for this condition, and I used eye drops. Eye doc wanted to put plugs in eye drains. You can try that. They are inserted in a second in doc's office. They may help you.
Posted by kelmo (Member # 8797) on :
Sjogren's is a syndrome, much like fibromyalgia and irritable bowel.
It's all part of the lovely Lyme package. My daughter is just now starting Restasis. I understand it takes several months to work.
She is still in her first month. She supplements with eye drops.
We run a ceiling fan all day in almost every room of the house. That surely can't help. But, we need them to survive the heat.
Hope you find relief. Loof for drops that do not contain preservatives. My daughter likes the Walgreens brand of natural tears. She's tried them all.
Posted by h8lyme (Member # 11765) on :
I too had dry eyes and dry mouth, after treatment for the past year and a half these symptoms are completely gone.
Posted by Marnie (Member # 773) on :
My daughter is dealing with severe dry eyes...ocular rosacea. Dry, painful, red.
Long story short...I think she has the HLA-DR gene type (allergies). IgE is on mast cells where it binds to antigens (proteins). Then these mast cells release histamine. The Th2 pathway (allergic response) is high, lactoferrin (binds iron) is low, IL1 is up in that disease (OA). TNF alpha is down in ocular rosacea.
It looks like those persons with that prob. have low DHEAS (S stands for sulfate)levels.
DHEAS is the storage form of DHEA and is supposed to be in balance with cortisol.
Albuterol (for asthma attacks - daughter has mold induced asthma) is albuterol SULFATE. It raises epinephrine (adrenaline).
DHEAS eye drops are available at a compounding pharmacy in California IF you can find an eye doctor willing to order them. The pharmacist is willing to talk to any and all doctors to explain the "whys" it works.
Restasis is an antibiotic. It DEPLETES Mg...further. It makes my daughter's eyes MORE inflammed, more red within minutes.
Even cortisone dose packs are NOT working for her. Neither did compounded preservative free cortisol eye drops - which amazed her multiple doctors.
The BC pill, Yasmin, is KNOWN to lower DHEA levels and cause hyperkalemia (high blood potassium).
This was disasterous for her. The combination of her gene type (low DHEAS levels to begin with) + stress (new job and divorce) + Yasmin -> severe dry eyes which is very hard to reverse and she has been told now "autoimmune"...
These persons (HLA-DR gene type) have a pre-existing adrenal function problem.
She is not dealing with lyme, but with some similar symptoms as a result of a messed up HPA axis (hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal).
Dry eyes also happen during menopause so there is an estrogen (likely E1 for her) connection too.
She also has lost significant weight and can NOT gain it back which concerns me. She wears a size 0-2.
So, the thyroid was impacted too. The glands all "communicate" with one another.
The interplay of all the hormones and all the neurotransmitters is very very complex...to say the least.
Find my posts re: EFA and DHA. Bb's cell walls are lipoproteins. TNF alpha sorta "signals" which proteins to oxidize (destroy) to damage Bb's cell walls. However, Bb has cellular pumps to restore the damaged cell walls.
I can link and document all of the above which I have done in other posts.
In lyme, TNF alpha is very high and IL1 B. My sister (with lyme) developed uveitis and came very very close to losing her eyesight. I know this sounds awful, but she had to resort to steroid shots (twice) directly into her eyes to stop the inflammation and protect her eyesight.
It DID work.
VERY LOCALLY.
She went to a uveitis specialist in Chicago.
Since a dose pack of cortisone given to her initally (misdiagnosed with RA, not lyme) zoomed her to stage 3 lyme, she was very reluctant to allow any steroids.
But, in this case, it worked very locally and did work.
Posted by ILymbo2 (Member # 13266) on :
I saw the eye doctor in March and he diagnosed me with dry eye. Also put on Restasis. One of the eyeglass technicians heard me complaining about
dry eyes and told me I show get the doctor to do "punctal plugs"?? Said this would decrease the dry eye a lot.
She said you ask doc to do it and the cost is about $100.00 and take just a few minutes.
Posted by onthemend (Member # 13454) on :
Yes. Increasingly dry eyes were another symptom that got worse and worse before I was ever diagnosed & put 2+2 together.
I've been treated since Feb/March '07 and the dry eyes have very much improved, but I can't say the problem has disappeared. On the other hand, I'm getting older, maybe that's now the reason for this problem for me!
I never was able to find anything that really improved the dry eye (until I started getting better thru abx!!) even though I worked with my optho on the problem. I even had plugs put in which in theory, would keep some of the gummy stuff out of my eyes. Didn't work!
Good Luck - I am sure this symptom will improve as your health improves. Mine is substantially better, I am back to wearing contacts with some reasonable level of comfort, etc.
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