I was 28, in so much pain I'd quit my job, and a hospital doctor told me I was "too young" for dry eye. This is exactly how my diagnosis went, the NHS route, the private route, and what I wish I'd done sooner.
My dry eye started when I was 27, going on 28, and I was diagnosed at 28. I'd started a full-time office job, and if you've ever wondered whether an office can genuinely wreck your eyes. It can. It's the air conditioning, which makes the air incredibly dry, and it's the sheer amount of screen time. You're sat in front of a screen for eight hours a day.
It happened to me fast. It didn't take thirty-odd years of office work. It happened in less than a year. At first I'd just feel my eyes getting tired by the end of the day: gritty, sore, a bit red. The next morning they'd be okay again, and the cycle would repeat. I didn't think much of it. I bought ordinary over-the-counter dry eye drops and used them at work.
Then it got worse, and worse. I got to the point where I'd come home and couldn't even watch TV. I'd just lie down with my eyes closed. Any concentrated screen work, spreadsheets especially, became my absolute worst enemy. And that was exactly what I did for eight hours a day.
I remember saying to my mum that it felt like someone had thrown acid in my eyes. That's honestly the only way I could describe it. They didn't necessarily feel dry as such. It was the burning, which I now know is the inflammation.
My first move was the opticians. I thought maybe I just needed my prescription updating, maybe I was straining my eyes. That wasn't it. I was in a lot of pain by this point, and a new prescription made no difference at all.
I want to say up front: I am so pro-NHS. I'm not someone who runs to the doctor unless I genuinely think something is seriously wrong. But I was at the end of my tether.
The first GP I saw was a lovely, sweet lady, but she was a trainee, and she essentially looked my symptoms up in the book and said, "okay, you should use eye drops." And I said, "yeah, I've been using eye drops, they're not doing anything." I'm not good at standing up for myself with doctors, so I just said "okay, thank you" and left. But honestly, at that point I could have poured drops in my eyes 24/7 and it wouldn't have changed how I felt.
At one point I was also told to clean my eyelids with baby shampoo. I now know that's old, outdated advice. Baby shampoo can actually irritate the eyes and strip away the very oils a dry eye is already short of, and there are proper lid-hygiene products made for this now. But outdated advice like that is sadly all too common with dry eye disease, and it's a big part of why I ended up doing so much of my own research.
I went back about a month later. By now I was taking time off work, using my holiday days, calling in sick, in no state to go in. This time the GP said, "because you've been in before and this is clearly ongoing, we'll refer you." She referred me to an eye specialist at the hospital.
I then waited six months for that appointment.
And this is the part where I really don't want to bad-mouth the NHS, but I have to be honest about what happened. The doctor I finally saw did my tear break-up time and told me my eyes weren't dry. He was a very unsympathetic man in his sixties; I was a 28-year-old woman. I genuinely believe he was of a generation that thinks you're simply too young to have dry eye disease, and he completely dismissed me, completely dismissed my worries. I came away feeling upset, dismissed, and so vulnerable. Either he didn't believe me, or... I didn't really know what to think. I just knew I was very, very sad.
Because that hospital wait had been so long, I'd actually already had a private appointment before it. A private eye specialist confirmed straight away that yes, it was dry eye disease, and that my tear break-up time was only one second. To be considered normal, it should be above ten.
(Quick explainer, because it's a good one: your tear break-up time is how long your tears stay stable on your eye before they break up. For roughly every ten seconds someone with healthy eyes can hold a stare, I can manage about one. I'm terrible at staring contests now. It basically means I have almost no tear film protecting my eyes, but we'll get into why another time.)
In the end, I quit my job. I had to. I was in too much pain every single day. And I went to the Dry Eye Centre in London and had a full assessment with Dr Tam. I was there about an hour and a half. He imaged my glands, and did a Schirmer's test to measure how many tears my eyes actually produce. I was very low on both: the oil from my glands and the tears from my eyes.
He recommended a proper plan: warm compresses at least once a day, eyelid hygiene, getting me back in for IPL, and considering punctal plugs and prescription eye drops. The good news was that most of my glands were still there, they just weren't producing much oil, and some were wavy where they should be straight.
For the first time, I felt listened to. It was the first time I'd had any real answers, and any real advice on what to do next.
As much as I think the NHS is wonderful, dry eye disease is one of those conditions that isn't that common and isn't life-threatening, so I feel it's something doctors can be very dismissive of, especially if they don't understand the physical and emotional pain it causes. That's why I ended up going private.
Here's the practical bit that I think really matters, though: a proper private diagnosis is worth it if you can possibly manage it, and I know I was lucky that my mum paid for mine (it was £250 for the full assessment at the time). Not just for the answers, but because you can then take that diagnosis back to your GP and say, "look, I've been formally diagnosed with this." From there they're far more likely to be responsive to you asking for prescription eye drops on the NHS. It genuinely changes how the conversation goes.
If I could go back in time, I would have left that job a lot sooner. But I want to be honest and fair about this, because it matters: I was lucky. I was living at home, and I had my mum to support me, which is the only reason walking away was even possible for me. I know that isn't an option for everyone, and it's genuinely not a decision to take lightly.
But here's the thing: neither is dry eye disease. If you truly think your screen time, your work, or your work environment is doing you harm, then honestly weighing up whether leaving is possible is something worth putting real thought into. Not on a whim, and not without a plan, but properly considering it. Because nothing is more important than your health.
I pushed and pushed and told myself it would be fine, and it wasn't. I was angry at myself for a long time for letting things get as bad as they did before I finally made the decision to leave. If any of that sounds familiar, please try to be kinder to yourself than I was, and don't wait as long as I did to take yourself seriously.
It affected me mentally in a way I still struggle to put into words. It was a very difficult time in my life. (I'm writing about the mental side properly in its own article, because it deserves the space.)
Getting a real diagnosis and an actual plan was the turning point. Not a cure, but the moment things stopped feeling hopeless. It does become more manageable, and everything I've learned since is exactly what this site is for.
What I did next became a whole journey of its own: my first rounds of IPL, having punctal plugs put in, and being prescribed iKervis drops for the first time. Rather than cram it all in here, I'm giving each one its own honest write-up:
If you're at the start of this and frightened, I hope reading mine makes you feel a little less alone, and a little more certain that pushing for answers is worth it.