Is this a possible Ms symptom

Hi I was wondering if my dry eyes is an Ms symptom? Ever since I was diagnosed I’ve had them, my doctor thinks it’s just caused by the menopause which I’ve also had since diagnoses they really bug me I don’t have pain but they feel dry sore and if it’s ms apart from fatigue it would be my worse symptom,it reminds me of when I had conjunctivitis as a teenager but they are not stuck together in the morning, but are a bit gunky and I bathe them and use heated gel pads in the morning but to be honest they don’t give much relief. It was my optician that suggested it was probably Ms related.

if anyone could advise, or suffered same I would love some advise if anyone has any,oh also I am sensitive to bright lights could this be Ms too?

thanks everyone

Annx

Ann, ON is Optic Neuritis hope you soon get some relief with your eyes, maybe try a different brand of eyedrops? When I’ve had ON my eyes have felt dry, but when the neuritis clears, the dry eyes get better.

Rosina x

Ann,

For what it’s worth, I would say that ‘dry eyes’ has nothing to do with MS.

I’ve had dry eyes since long before MS. My mother has been afflicted with dry eyes for years, and doesn’t have MS.

Perhaps your doctor’s opinion is correct ? (…and who are we to dispute it )

Dom

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I’ve also been told by my doctor that my problem with a recurrent sore and irritated (dry???) eye. She concedes it can be a symptom of some immune system disorders (notably lupus), but says MS isn’t one of them (and I haven’t been able to find any authoritative source that links the two either).

At the moment, it seems like it’s just a bloomin’ frustrating coincidence!

I’ve seen a consultant opthalmologist at the hospital about it, only to be told it was a rare presentation of chlamydia. What? I hadn’t been in a relationship for years - and I don’t mean having casual flings instead. But as I had no idea if it’s something that can lie dormant in the body for years, I didn’t have the courage of my convictions to tell him: “That’s extremely unlikely!”, even though, I knew, deep-down, it wasn’t. But so confident was he of his diagnosis that he put me on antibiotics at once, to cure me of “chlamydia”, without even waiting for the lab results to come back. Which, surprise, surprise, came back clear for chlamydia, and indeed anything else!

So really, we are still no further forward. When it gets really bad, steroid drops help, but antibiotic ones don’t - because it’s not an infection. Steroid drops are not safe for continued use, as they can cause glaucoma, so I have to wait 'til it gets really acute and then beg.

The closest I have ever got to any explanation is that it resembles an allergy, but I do not know how it’s possible to be allergic in only one eye (always the same eye).

It may be coincidence, but I have not suffered from it as much since I stopped working. That’s a little odd, as I used to work from home, so my daily environment hasn’t changed. And I still spend a lot of hours on the computer - for my own education and entertainment - regardless that I no longer get paid for it. So it’s hard to spot what the crucial difference is.

Except that I now almost always have a nap in the afternoons, which means I am not spending all day on the computer, even if I use it a lot. Also it’s now my own computer I bought myself, so I wonder if there was anything about the work one or its settings that particularly caused eye strain.

I’m hard-pressed to think of anything else I did for work, that I don’t do now, that could have made such a difference. It’s all very peculiar.

Tina