The message below was posted on the Surgical Eyes Bulletin Board. This person has no other complications. This is simply LASIK dry eye. These unending symptoms have driven many to consider suicide, because there is no relief!
I am over two years (Dec 2000) post lasik and my eyes have been nothing but burning, red, bloodshot, irritated, and painful and I don’t know what to do. It seems the more drops I put in my eyes the more burning and irritated and painful they get.
In addition to the burning pain one of my other big complaints is my eyes are always bloodshot. I have blood vessels in my eyes that I had never seen before the lasik. It seems anything that comes in contact with them, dust, dirt, fumes, chemicals etc… the blood vessels immediately upon contact dilate, and get very red and burn. When I walk into malls, grocery stores, dept. stores, Home Depot, airports, etc… within minutes my eyes become inflamed and burning and my blood vessels get larger and redder.
The degree of burning pain varies depending on what I am doing. At work my eyes are in a lot of burning pain and very bloodshot. I do work on the computer all day.
My right eye has always been the more painful one. In addition to the burning pain, the pain in this eye can vary from a stinging pain, to the pain of a pin sticking in my eye, to the feeling like someone has punched me in the eye. Sometimes the pain takes over my entire right side of my head. The pain can last for hours or an entire day. There are days I do not have this pain in my right eye. This eye seems to be very sensitive.
Over the past year I have seen three Ophthalmologists (the surgery center where I had the lasik performed only does follow ups for a year and it was with an optometrist). I have continued to see the same Ophthalmologists for almost a year now. All three MD’s said my cornea looks good and has healed fine. I have had the schirmer test twice. The first time was January 2002 (1 year post lasik) according to the nurse practitioner my results were 11 with 15 being average. The second schirmer was September 2002. The results were right eye - 25 mm for 2 minutes, left eye - 27 mm for 2 minutes. Unfortunately I do not think this is an accurate reading because I was pretty emotional that day at the doctors and when I had the papers in my eyes I could feel the emotional tears pouring in. So I think the emotional tears probably altered the results.