[Bobbi]

#1066965

I do have the eye disease, albeit in remission, and my eyes are extremely dry, and contacts feel like suction cups after about an hour or two. I don’t think this had anything to do with RAI, inasmuch as the dry eyes showed up before I had my RAI treatment.

[susandemarco]

#1066966

Bobbi,
So what you are saying is that you had dry eyes and eye disease before you had RAI? I am very concerned about
the RAI causing eye disease. Graves disease is such a complicated disease.

I hope I don’t sound as if I am repeating myself, but I am just trying to understand this whole thing.

Thanks,
Susan

[Ski]

#1066967

I wear contact lenses, and I’ve had RAI twice. I do think my eyes are a little more dry than most people’s, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the RAI, it has to do with the autoimmune disease in general. Our tears are thinner, so they don’t moisturize as well. As long as I keep artificial tears nearby, I’m fine ~ and I do not need them every single day, sometimes not even every week. I can’t wear the contact lenses for as much time as I did before, but they’re good for a 10-hour day, easily.

RAI does not cause TED. It can stimulate the antibodies and lead to a brief increase in symptoms, but if you haven’t had severe TED symptoms, it won’t begin that process from scratch. My symptoms of grittiness and general discomfort abated after about 90 days, and didn’t occur at all after the second RAI. I’ve never had severe TED symptoms throughout my disease, treatment or healing process, and my first hyperthyroid blood test was in 1999.

[susandemarco]

#1018767

I am scheduled to have RAI on January 8,2010. I am wondering if anyone wore contact lense before
RAI, and if I will be able to wear them after. I have read a lot about eye disease, which I have never had since I was diagnosed twenty years ago.

I would appreciate any information on this subject.

Thanks,
Susan

[Bobbi]

#1066968

To clarify — I had dry eyes prior to RAI. I developed other, overt symptoms (primarily double vision) of the eye disease many months after my RAI treatment.

People develop the eye disease based on antibody action. Some folks develop horrendous eye disease before their thyroids go wonky. Some develop it long after they’ve been treated. Since none of our treatments for the thyroid imbalance involve getting rid of the antibodies at this point, the eye disease comes as it will. If you go to the top of the board column, you’ll see a post from Peter about the newsletter in November. If you can read a PDF file, you can download the newsletter. There’s an article in it about some current research on the eye disease. If you cannot read that type of file, the gist of the article was the discovery of a protein shared by the thyroid AND the eye muscles that is suspected of being the link between Graves and TED.

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