Dry eyes - a symptom of anxiety and stress?

[bonita9]

Hello everyone. I am 23 years old and have had anxiety in my entire life. I also have ADHD. Until now I have been on antidepressants for 3 years and been a bit on and off with therapy. I have general anxiety disorder and sometimes panic attacks... I'm especially afraid of dying and because of that I also have some sort of health anxiety. The strange thing is that I've almost never been sick and never been near death, but this fear have for some reason always been present. (Please excuse my bad english...)

Last spring I went through an extremely tough time with hard training and diet (fitness competition). I know, it was a stupid thing to do! I regret it so much. Anyway, when I finished the competitions and gained weight again, I suddenly got dry eyes. While I was dieting and training hard I had almost no sign of anxiety at all, but when that period was over I got anxiety and this dryness in the eyes. Now it's ruining my life and makes me more afraid and depressed than ever before. My eye doctor says he thinks the antidepressants is the main cause of my eye dryness, but I'm not so sure... Certainly, I got mouth dryness because of them, but now that I'm off them the dryness in the mouth is gone.. So why aren't my eyes well again? In fact, my biggest fear is to become blind, so mabye it isn't that strange that the anxiety mabye are affecting my eyes...? :scared15:


I feel like my whole body always are on alert, and I don't know how to slow it down! All I want is that my eyes will become healthy again... and get ridd of the anxiety. I've been tested for Sjögrens, metabolism and hormones, but the doctors find nothing wrong with me!

Can the eye problems be a result of enormous stress in the body for a long time? (years). And can this be anxiety? I have dry eyes even if I'm calm, but I always have the anxiety in the back of my head. :shrug:

[Lakme]

Hello everyone. I am 23 years old and have had anxiety in my entire life. I also have ADHD. Until now I have been on antidepressants for 3 years and been a bit on and off with therapy. I have general anxiety disorder and sometimes panic attacks... I'm especially afraid of dying and because of that I also have some sort of health anxiety. The strange thing is that I've almost never been sick and never been near death, but this fear have for some reason always been present. (Please excuse my bad english...)

Last spring I went through an extremely tough time with hard training and diet (fitness competition). I know, it was a stupid thing to do! I regret it so much. Anyway, when I finished the competitions and gained weight again, I suddenly got dry eyes. While I was dieting and training hard I had almost no sign of anxiety at all, but when that period was over I got anxiety and this dryness in the eyes. Now it's ruining my life and makes me more afraid and depressed than ever before. My eye doctor says he thinks the antidepressants is the main cause of my eye dryness, but I'm not so sure... Certainly, I got mouth dryness because of them, but now that I'm off them the dryness in the mouth is gone.. So why aren't my eyes well again? In fact, my biggest fear is to become blind, so mabye it isn't that strange that the anxiety mabye are affecting my eyes...? :scared15:


I feel like my whole body always are on alert, and I don't know how to slow it down! All I want is that my eyes will become healthy again... and get ridd of the anxiety. I've been tested for Sjögrens, metabolism and hormones, but the doctors find nothing wrong with me!

Can the eye problems be a result of enormous stress in the body for a long time? (years). And can this be anxiety? I have dry eyes even if I'm calm, but I always have the anxiety in the back of my head. :shrug:

If it's not sjogren's you're in luck. It's probably nothing to worry about. Stress doesn't cause dry eyes. People say "stress causes this, and stress causes that" without knowing how cortisol really works. They used to say stress caused stomach ulcers too until they found out that they were being caused by a strain of bacteria in the 1980's. I personally don't think there's anything wrong with stress as a whole, because a lot of people blame mental disorder may on stress, when they should be blaming stress on mental disorders. Try to drink more fluids or use eye drops if your eyes are really bothering you. If it becomes unbearable, try getting your vitamin levels checked. I'm not quite sure if there's a connection, but I've had dry eye for about a year, and when I went to go get a b12 shot my eyes teared up for a couple days.

[snowghost57]

Check with your doctor.