Severe Eye Pain

[Roman_Y]

My wife is suffering from severe eye pain whenever she reads the book for more than 30 min or watches TV or computer monitor for more than 10 min. The pain does not come instantly but develops and intensifies gradually even after the reading or TV watching is done. Local ophtalmologist has diagnosed her with dry eye syndrome, even though the only symptom that she has is pain. He was not able to find anything else wrong with her eyes. She was tested for Sjogren's and it came out negative.
She also develops a slight redness in her eyes at night. Light tends to bother her, especially from electric sources. Regular over the counter treatments against dry eye syndrome do not seem to have much effect.

Thank you in advance for you advice.

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

Her description of what bothers her is classic dry eyes as reading, watching tv, movies, computers causes the blink rate to slow and this makes the dry eyes cause pain.

Return to the Eye MD and discuss going to restasis. Use the search feature and read about other treatments for dry eyes.

JCH MD

[kg17]

Eye pain, photosensitivity, and redness can all occur due to dry eye.

There is a ton of info. regarding dry eye treatment on this forum you can access thru a search.  Treatment can include punctal plugs, restasis, artificial tears (without preservatives), increase humidified air, moisture goggles, fish/flaxseed oil (2000 mg/daily).