Hi everyone,
I am new to this site and am looking for some encouragement. I had LASIK done about 3 months ago and have been suffering from dryness on and off since then. The first few weeks, my eyes were pretty tired and dry in the evenings. Then around 1 month post-op I had a really bad week with dryness (I think it may have been aggravated by my seasonal allergies), and was using drops constantly. This cleared up, and I had 3 wonderful weeks, where everything felt completely normal. Then the dryness started again. At the 2 month mark, my doctor told me to start taking flax seed oil and I have been doing so for the last month. I was expecting him to say...don't worry about it..you just have to give it time...it will go away. Yet, he seemed to act like this was not very common. It sounds like from things I've read that I just need to give it time and that things should clear up in 6 months, but it seems to be a constant source of anxiety for me. I guess my anxiety is coming from all the horror stories that I have read, which have probably caused weeks of unnecessary worry.
What I don't understand is how I could have a few perfect weeks and then have the dryness come back. Is this normal? Also, 2 weeks ago I spent 5 days on vacation at the beach, and for those 5 days, I had no symptoms whatsoever, yet on the car ride home, my eyes started to feel dry again, and have been since. Should the fact that I have had normal days be encouraging that I will be back to normal soon? Should I even be concerning myself with this at all since it has only been 3 months? It is just that everyone else I know that has had this surgery had dryness for maybe a month, and then everything was fine, so that is what I was expecting. If anyone has any encouraging stories I would really appreciate it. Postive stories only please! Or if any doctors can explain why the dryness left and then returned, I would really appreciate it. My doctor just keeps telling me...anything can happen, and doesn't seem to have an explanation for any of this. Thanks so much in advance for any replies! I could really use some positive encouragment to get me through this!

I am probably one of the less fortunate individuals when it comes to dry eye. I've had dry eye since I got lasik done in January, and for the first few months was using drops every 10 minutes (no joke). However, I too had good days and bad days, and it varied by the weather, location, amount of time on the computer, etc. Now almost 9 months later my eyes are still dry but I only use drops once every couple of hours and I improve slightly every month. So if you're already having some periods during which everything feels normal, you're probably well on the road to full recovery. I was advised that you really need to give it 6 months before starting to get very serious about controlling the dry eye, in the meantime just keep your eyes moist so that it doesn't affect the healing process. Best of luck!
Matt

Hi there! Sorry to read about your dry eye. I hope your surgeons warned you carefully about dry eye and LASIK in your informed consent. Most patients I talk with have found out about dry eye *after* surgery, which is a clear violation of the informed consent.

I have had dry eye ever since my LASIK surgery. It hasn't gotten any better... I am worse off at around 18 months than I was at 6 months. Turns out that this is consistent with findings at the Mayo Clinic on corneal nerve damage after LASIK - the Mayo Clinic measured nerve recovery after LASIK and showed that nerves recover then start to diminish again between years 2-3 after LASIK. The study ends at the 3 year point with patients on average losing more than 40% of their corneal nerve density.

I'm really worried about our future. Needless to say, I am not optimistic about recovering from my painful dry eye. Dry eye also interferes with my vision, as a proper tear film is required for clear vision.

You can try punctal plugs (essentially little plastic pieces are inserted in your tear ducts to compensate for the fact that your corneal nerves are damaged). The plugs keep what few tears you can manage to make after LASIK from 'going down the drain' so to speak.

what about prk? I hear it damages far fewer nerves than lasik so the incidence and severity of dry eyes is greatly reduced. Whats your take on this

I hope your right about the prk because thats what i had done.

My doc made it seem VERY RARE for people to require drops after one year. I think his number was like 1 in 10,000.

I am able to produce a lot of tears when yawning to the point of my eyes getting really wet. Is that a sign that my nerve was not damaged? Does anyone know the asner to this?

Hi aaron,
I am in the UK and I had epi lasek done which I think is the same as PRK. I have noticed that when I yawn I get plentiful tears but the dry eyes still occur. Perhaps it is the quality of tears or the retention factor. I am 5 months in and would really like to hear some good news stories regarding the 6 month mark!