Sjogren's & dry eyes

[Guest guest]

Those of you who have Sjogren's, how were you diagnosed? Were you given

a specific test, or did the doctor just go by your symptoms?

I recently went to a cornea specialist to have my Fuchs' corneal

dystrophy and cataracts assessed. As a result, I will be having

cataract surgery soon.

They did all kinds of tests on my eyes. One of the technicians said

that she thought that I might have dry eye. So she stuck a little strip

of paper into each eye, said something about three minutes, and left

the room. She gave me no instructions. I thought that I was supposed to

keep my eyes closed, so I did. I waited and waited, and my eyes started

to be very irritated. I finally took the strips out, but my eyes were

still killing me. I got up and looked in the mirror and found that the

end of each strip was stuck firmly to my eyeball.

The tech did not come back in for 20-30 minutes. I told her what had

happened, and she proceeded to try to get the paper out with a q-tip,

which did not feel good at all. I said that those numbing drops were

not working anymore, so she put more in and finally got the paper out

of my eyes.

I have since learned that this dry eye test is called the Schirmer

test. I was supposed to keep my eyes open and blink normally. I would

have done this if I had been told to.

Sue