I think foreign travel wrecked my eyes 3 years ago. Here is what happened leading up to the eye problem I still have now.
I traveled to Mexico to build adobe houses for the Yaqui in Jan. 2005, we're digging on a site where an outhouse had been moved around the yard a lot, sucking in dust and dirt, not able to bathe much, and eating local food prepared for us by the outreach program. I got diarrhea two and a half weeks in, and then a coughing that turned into a bloody bronchitis. The local doctor prescribed something, and then I saw my regular doc once when I got back before my insurance cut off. I felt bad for months.
In April, I traveled to Taiwan, where my husband was teaching for the semester. We went everywhere, ate local foods, and it was advised because of my having not been well, to eat a lot of fish and to soak in natural springs. I got very, very ill and ended up one evening in the emergency room with respiratory distress and my left eardrum about to pop. They gave me some medicines and put me to bed for the rest of the trip. A week after I got back, we went to Sea World, and a week after that I erupted in a weird red rash all over, even in my mouth.
In September, I had a headache that came on and I couldn't shake for a month, and my eye sockets were burning. They continued to hurt after the headache finally went away.
I started having confusion, aphasia, headaches, mastoid ache, eye socket soreness, constant sinus drainage, and worsening vision. Which all continues in addition to some other unresolved health issue with my lungs, liver, and bladder.
I've been to the eye doctor seven times in two years, even once to a neuro-opthalmologist, and have no answers except I have tight crowded something in my eyes, and I am losing my peripheral vision. I can't reliably drive anymore, light hurts my eyes, and I can't see very well. I do have blepharitis and eye dryness, but never caused me problems like this.
I'm only 36, and if I lose my vision, I'm done for.