UK Keratoconus Self-Help and Support Association

Hi all,
Director brought this up in another thread and i thought it would be interesting to get other comments on the effects of stress on our eyes.
i recently ended up in hospital with an unknown allergic reaction- bad rash all over and swollen lip... the doctor and nurses said that although i have never been allergic to anything before (or since) that stress can bring on an attack such as that! it has made me wonder what else stress can do....
- does it really increase your risk of rejection?
- does it change the shape of your eyeball like physical exercise can?

I know when I am over-stressed because I get an allergic response to all sorts of things that, at other times, have no effect on me whatsoever. This can include itchy eyes.

I guess that there has to be some added risk of rejection of your eyes are so itchy that you want to do nothing other than rub them vigorously. I always have a supply of preservative free Clinitas Soothe; instead of rubbing my eyes I irrigate them with artificial tears.

All the best

Andrew

I''m convinced that stress does impact on lens wear, for one thing the eye muscles tense up more which make insertion/removal harder when you need to relax them. Tired eyes [especially through protracted sleep deprivation] do not like wearing lenses and may say NO altogether. Under stress generally speaking we are more prone to picking up infections or colds, so why not the eyes. I find my corneas less tolerant during my menstrual cycle, sometimes it feels like they've changed shape [even 8 bars of chocolate don't help ]. Being sick and exercise impacts on eye pressure and of stress can impact on blood pressure, why not intraoccular pressure. Would be interesting to research this

I think that stress definately affects the eyes.

My first hydrops happened the day after i moved house.
My second hydrops in the same eye happened a year later when moving house and a week after starting a new job.
My third hydrops happened exactly a year leter when moving house again.

Decided not to move house or change jobs this year.........

don't blame you!

oh dear... maybe it is the lifting of heavy things as well!
i am moving in a month.... i will make sure not to lift many things.... hire someone tough to do all of that....

I've not noticed stress affecting my eyes. But I do find the whole process of getting new lenses or having an eye test stressful.

There's the long wait between contact lens appointments; the two hour journey and three changes of trains to get to the hospital; then the lenses not necessarily performing as expected or as I hoped.

And as for the eye tests at the local opticians when asked 'better or worse?' I say 'neither' they say 'you mean the same? and I reply 'no different'. 'What do you mean different?' 'Well' I reply 'the middle two squares look more like letters with the 'a' and the outer two with 'b' - but it's not clear with either'. I'm sure I don't come across at my best. I've now got to return to the local optician and explain that the glasses work better when placed on the end of my nose than next to my eyes. I could just leave the back-up glasses in the back of a drawer but I know that I need to be able to give my eyes a rest from contact lenses. And, if I can't see as well as I know I should be able to, I get irritable with those around me.

I know that it is quite ridiculous to get stressed by the whole process, but if it were simple it would be so much easier.

Lia

It's not all ridiculous to get stressed by the whole process, it IS stressful, you're allowed to feel that!

I know what you mean about fitting for glasses.
I recently had the same but the optician gave up in the end and asked me to control the eyeglass machine.

Its because glasses for KC sufferers are not just about correcting the main astigmatism, it is a very subjective thing for us to get the cyl power and angle in such a way as it reduces ALL of the irregular astigmatism axis to get a 'Best Fit' solution.....

Currently i am wearing glasses with one of my old lenses sellotaped to the front of the left lens, it looks well strange, but it seems to work.