Tips from readers

From Elizabeth, about a lid cleansing product making a difference for her severe dry eyes:

Since 2008 I have had severe dry eyes. I have been through many routes and still am living a normal life managing my dry eye symptoms. In the beginning 2 years, I had to wear goggles 24/7 and was in constant pain. One thing that had been if inestimable help is using the ( unfortunately very expensive ) Theratear eye wash product twice a day.  It is a strange product, faintly foamy snd smell is strange but it's a natural product (Tea tree oil?) whose characteristics I wish I could duplicate through home made, as it is $24 and the bottle only lasts 10 days. But it has made a world of difference for me, and when I forgo it even for a day I am in much worse shape. 

From Lynn, about lens wetting drops:

...Let’s keep wishing and hopefully one day (soon) someone will manufacture a preservative-free contact lens drop for scleral lens.

Before my scleral lens, I was a piggy-back contact lens wearer and tried using BLINK CONTACTS but it seemed to leave a film over the hard lens. I’m not giving up on BLINK CONTACTS as I do plan on trying it with my scleral lens. I do like BLINK-N-CLEAN contact lens eye drops and have no problem using it while wearing my scleral lens.

From Dave, about how he keeps his eyes protected overnight:

I went back to my eye specialist and told him how i manage my dry eye syndrome ( as shown below ) . He said , you shouldnt have to do that , i know that but its the only thing that works for me

My nightime regime is as follows

BEDTIME

1. Clean eyes and eye lids with preservative free ' eye wipes '

2. Ensure hands are very clean

3. Apply two small blobs on Allergan ' Lacri-lube' eye ointment to left index finger

4. Using my right index finger i put one blob into my eye and gently spread it around covering as much of the cornea as possible

5. Then grab the eye lashes on the same eye lid and spread / pull this around and over the eye ball to coat the inside surface of the eye lid

6. Repeat this with the other eye

7. Apply a reasonable amount of Vaseline ' petroleum jelly ' to each eye where the upper and lower eye lids meet ( this acts like mortar betweens two bricks )

8. Next , using a tube of Xailin ' eye gel ' squirt a decent amount up inside each eye lid

9. Close both eyes to keep the eye gel in position

10. Gently massage round the outside of each eye lid with eyes closed over the eye ball

11. This adds more lubrication inside the closed eye

12. Lastly , spread more Vaseline petroleum jelly over the entire closed eye socket to keep everything in place

13, And be careful as you stagger back to the bed , and try not to trip over anything

Note ... I have found over the last few years that everything i use in my eyes has to be ' Preservative free' or problems and soreness ( extremely red eyes ) occurs very quickly

Ive been carrying out this long winded procedure since early 2016 and have had a lot of success and some decent nights sleep

ive have had no more severe eye infections partly due to ensuring lubrication at night which stops any Cornea damage , which in turn can lead to eye infections

its a real pain in the back side to do , but it has become part of my life

Hope this can help someone who reads this

Humidifiers... in homes using liquid propane

A reader shares his story of noticing a change in their LP gas range's burner flame, and all the detective work he put in to figuring out why - and how it relates to humidifier use.

This is not a subject area I know anything about personally, and it was fascinating to me. We use LP for both cooker and fridge in our tinyhome, but then, we're off grid and don't have a humidifier, so I wouldn't have guessed.

Rebecca,
  

Don't know if you'll remember me but we corresponded a bit a few years ago. As a dry eye sufferer I am a big fan of the work you do to educate folks suffering from dry eyes and I read your newsletter eagerly each time it arrives. 

I recently ran across some info I think might prove useful to your readers and I am writing you today in hopes that you might share it with them. After several, years of being under great control my Sjogrens disease related dry eye symptoms recently began to flare again. It has been a very cold winter here in Maine with attendent increase in the need for home heating which of course creates a very dry inside climate. Thinking that my trusty old humidifier might help I dug it out, filled it with tap water and turned it on.

Sure enough within a few days my dry eye symptoms began to slowly improve and I am actually now able to get some decent sleep.

Alas, shortly after I began using my humidifier my wife began complaining that the burner flame on our LP Gas range began to turn yellow. I checked and sure enough what had been a bright blue flame now appeared a reddish yellow. I did a little checking on the Internet and discovered that the usual cause of a yellow flame was either gas contaminated with water, or an improperly adjusted gas/air mixture. I called my LP Gas supplier who felt that it might have something to do with the LP Gas tank being low and he sent over a truck to fill it.

Sadly this did nothing to cure the problem and the gas company suggested I contact a heating contractor to schedule a maintenance check.

Given that this was going to cost me several hundred dollars, and given that I was looking for an excuse to stop working on my income taxes 😤 I fired up my iPad and did some more research on the yellow flame problem.

Eventually I ran into a YouTube video that proved that running a humidifier in the house would cause a gas range flame to turn yellow! Some folks thought it was because of the moisture added to the air, others felt it had to do with various other factors. Eventually a chemist got involved and he said that sodium was being relased from the water molecules and causing the flame to turn yellow. Someone suggested that using distilled water which is mineral free might cure the problem.

Sure enough I refilled my humidifier with distilled water and within a short time the burner flame changed back to a deep blue color.

Dozens of folks reported having spent hundreds of dollars trying to solve this problem as a yellow flame caused by an incorrect gas/air can result in excessive carbon monoxide production which can prove deadly. Time after time even factory trained representatives were totally unable to correct the problem. And then along came a clever guy...

It is still not entirely clear if the yellow flame created by using tap water in a humidifier creates a carbon monoxide risk but the general consensus is that it does not. I personally have experienced no ill effects normally associated with carbon monoxide but based upon one night's experience it "seems" like using distilled water in my humidifier resulted in a noticeable improvement in my dry eye symptoms. Given that sodium is the major mineral associated with salt, and given that salt is known to have a drying effect it may well be that distilled water is the better choice. So I am going to give it a try...

Might be worth running a short piece on this in your newsletter as I know many dry eye folks use humidifiers.

All Best & Keep Up The Good Work!
Winston Shaw

Just a few notes of my own to add:

• If you're using LP in your home, I sure hope you have a carbon monoxide detector with fresh batteries! 
• Cleaning your humidifier regularly is a very important safety tip as well.
• Ultrasonic humidifiers should be used only with distilled water in any case, as otherwise you can get the "white dust" effect.
• The EPA says, for mold prevention, you should not let the relative humidity level get above 60% in your home, and ideally, keep it between 30% and 50%.