Healthier Rose in ’09, Part II

You will recall that I have been steadily attempting to find out what’s wrong with me. Ok, that’s too broad of an opening for smarmy comments there, let’s try that again. You will recall that I have this mysterious eye-goo issue and I went to an allergist because I just knew I was allergic to my kitty-poos, but turns out I wasn’t? Well, so it was time for my annual visit to the eye doctor this past Tuesday and since I’m still having eye goo issues, I brought it up. And I ‘fessed up that I’d been unfaithful to him and gone to an ophthalmologist during the summer, but he wasn’t too upset with me. I told him about the allergist and how everyone’s suggestions were helping, but nothing was solving the issue. He agreed that I have floppy eyelids and he explained that when I’m asleep and my muscles relax, my floppy eyelids open just a wee bit and as a result of being exposed to the ambient air and the crap floating around therein, my eyes dry out, and in reaction to the dry eyeballs, my body produces the mucus to keep the eyes moist. Knowing why it’s doing it doesn’t make it less annoying, but it does reassure me that my eyes aren’t going to fall out due to some dread disease. So that’s good.

We discussed the ideas that previous professionals had had about the sitch – sleeping in an eye mask and using Pataday (or “Liquid Gold” as I like to call it) and flushing out the sinuses and their rates of success. This doctor suggested that I could do something else and not have to sell my kidneys to pay for the Pataday – I can use some over the counter stuff, Refresh PM – a tube of goop to put in my eyes to help keep the eye balls moist at night, so it doesn’t have to produce the goo, and Refresh Tears eye drops during the day to keep them moist in the day. I told him I didn’t seem to have a problem with dry eyes during the day, but since I got the eye drops and started using them, my eyes have felt GREAT, so obviously I did. Anyway, turns out that not only are these products over the counter, but CVS had generic versions, so I paid under $20 for both rather than the $106 I’ve been paying for the Pataday. Plus, the eye drops are a normal size bottle instead of the doll-sized bottle that Pataday comes in.

Still at the eye doctor, I’d mentioned that I’d accidentally put a contact for my left eye prescription in my right eye at the beginning of the month and that I’d been able to see so well that I’d left it there. As predicted, my Rx for the right eye, which was -8.00, was now closer to that of the left eye, which was -8.50. But my Rx in my left eye was off between when tested with and without the contact. This mystery perplexed him and we talked anew. He noticed that my eye lashes were super long, and in fact, they curled up toward the inside, scraping against my eye balls when I blinked. After another test involving yellow eye drops and very bright light, he said that he could see that my eye lashes were scraping my cornea… (or whatever the outside layer of eye is – I don’t know, my last Bio class was in 1988!) Again we chat about things to do – he suggested plucking my eyelashes and I said OUCH! I suggested trimming my eyelashes and he cringed, I suppose, at the thought of me using scissors near my eyes. So he offered, as a friend, not as my eye doctor (although legally speaking, I don’t know if that would have absolved him from liability… hmmm… something to think about..), to trim them. I said sure and that I had manicure scissors in my purse. Long story slightly less long story, he trimmed my eye lashes and not only is the world slightly clearer, but also sort of brighter. One very successful doctors trip for the day!