Stonewalled by docs

[LilliaT]

Hi hopeforall,

I wrote one of the posts that you mentioned in your original post on this thread, with questions similar to yours.  (I'm the mom of the 9-year-old that posted a while back.)  I'm wondering if you've made any progress either in getting a diagnosis or in ruling anything out.

My primary care doctor, like yours, also thinks that my dry eyes and dry mouth are allergy-related.  She says it's been an unusually bad year for seasonal allergies here (NYC).  The ophthalmologist also thought my eyes showed signs of allergies.  (Because I was an idiot and had put eyedrops in right before he came into the exam room, he did not think my eyes seemed that dry.)  I'd love for them to be right -- for this all to be nothing but allergies -- but it seems kind of implausible. 

The ophthalmologist suggested taking allergy medication or using a steroid nasal spray, but I've hesitated to do so for fear that i'll make the dryness worse.

I am sorry that you are going through all this.  It is frustrating not to be able to get any answers, and frightening to face the possibility of a lifetime of autoimmune issues.  I've been healthy and active my whole life -- and now, in my darker moments, I think about how I should have better appreciated those years of good health and blissful ignorance before they ended.  I still hold out a faint hope -- however irrational -- that it may turn out to be something else.  (For example, the ENT mentioned that my thyroid felt slightly swollen, and I had this moment of thinking, "Hey!  Maybe it's just thyroid issues!  Something that can be treated!")  But I'm slowly also preparing myself mentally to deal with an eventual Sjogren's diagnosis. 

I do hear that, for many people, Sjogren's is reasonably manageable.  If it turns out that you do have Sjogren's, that doesn't mean you won't be able to find a long-term relationship, get married, have a good life.  (For what it's worth, I know people who are happily married or in long-term relationships with people that they met well after developing some kind of disability or chronic health condition.  So I don't think it's a dealbreaker for any decent person.)