If you’ve never experienced chronic dry eye, it’s hard to explain just how much it can control your life. But if you have, you probably know the feeling:

The raw, stinging sensation. The gritty “sandpaper” dryness the moment you open your eyes. That cycle of desperation, hope, and disappointment with every new treatment from your eye care provider.

I lived that reality for 15 years.

Living in Dry Eye Hell

It started in 2011, after a nasty case of pink eye. Antibiotics cleared the infection, but still something wasn’t right. The feeling of dry, irritated, and scratchy eyes didn’t go away. Over the coming months, contacts became unbearable. I saw a few local eye care specialists, tried steroid drops, Restasis, and eventually Lipiflow. Nothing helped. My eyes started to become a constant source of pain and discomfort. Pain that didn’t go away.

I completely gave up contacts for glasses, and simply learned to “live with it.” I started carrying single-use vials of preservative-free drops everywhere I went. When I would forget drops on a trip, I’d panic.

There were flights when I would accidentally fall asleep just to wake up with eyes so bone dry my eyelids would be stuck to them. I would find myself stumbling to the bathroom past a steward eyeing me curiously, so that I could splash water on my face in order to open my eyes again.

Over The Next 10 Years, My Symptoms Got Worse

Over the course of the next 10 years my symptoms continued to get worse. And in 2020, that’s when things got really bad.

During the early days of the COVID lockdown, my symptoms hit rock bottom. I was working from home staring at a computer 8 to 10 hours a day and then entertaining myself with a variety of screens for another 5 or 6 hours. My eyes hated me, and I hated them, during those days. The dryness was relentless — like someone had taped my eyelids open and pointed a fan at my face. All day every day.

I couldn’t leave the house without excruciating pain. I was using drops every 15 minutes. I’d wake up every hour at night to reapply gel drops. I couldn’t watch a movie with my partner without re-applying drops dozens of times. I couldn’t hold a conversation without excusing myself midway to put in drops.

And in the early days of COVID I couldn’t see a dry eye care provider. I was trapped. Trapped in dry eye hell.

I felt hopeless. And frankly, I was losing my ability to work and function. I wondered if I would even be able to work. Staring at a computer, or any screen for that matter was misery incarnate. My mental state eroded. I spiraled. I started avoiding activities I once loved:

reading…too uncomfortable,

lap swimming…chlorine too irritating,

hikes…the wind was unbearable.

Even spending time with family became an exercise in pain management rather than enjoyment.

The Devastating Truth About Dry Eye

Ok so here’s the bad news…dry dye is a complex disorder that you will have for the rest of your life. And it’s a degenerative disease, meaning symptoms can become worse with time and age.

Solutions like OTC drops offer only temporary relief. And news flash, big pharma isn’t incentivized to fix the problem. They would LOVE to sell you $500/month drops for life.

Another shocker, eye drops don’t solve the root of your dry eye problem. They temporarily coat the surface of the eye providing short lived relief, and then poof they evaporate. Five minutes later you’re feeling back to miserable.

Without a healthy layer of oil, drops (or tears) will continue to evaporate—leaving your poor cornea just as exposed as it was five minutes prior.

But this rock bottom of misery became a turning point. I committed myself to finding a solution and clawing back my quality of life.

Visiting Dozens Of Specialists All Over The US

Between 2020 and 2023 I visited dry eye specialists all over the country—from coast to coast. I read dry eye clinical studies and literature. I started coming to visits with a binder (yes a binder) of my health information, experimentations, and findings.

Name every treatment that exists for dry eye—I’ve tried it. Here’s what I quickly realized. If you have a moderate-to-severe dry eye, you’re looking at a lot of work and a lot of expense, with a fat coating of patience sprinkled on top.

When over-the-counter drops fail you, doctors typically reach for the big guns—prescription eye medications like Restasis, Xiidra, or Ceqa—or minor procedures like punctal plugs or IPL. These solutions claim to address underlying inflammation or increase tear production, supposedly offering a more permanent solution vs regular artificial tears.

With price tags ranging from $500-700 per month, they certainly come with expectations of superior results. And typically you’ll need to pursue these treatments over the course of months. Many months. If not years.

When every day is a battle, and you’re told you’ll need to give Restasis a try for three to six months before you’ll see some benefit, that’s a tough metaphorical pill to swallow. I would constantly find myself battling out the three months just to find that the medication didn’t help at all.

Then there's the cost burden. Even with insurance, you're looking at $30-150 in monthly copays for years on end—if it works. Without coverage? You’re  looking at thousands annually for a prescription that may or may not help.

Do these solutions solve some piece of the puzzle? Yes, of course. Dry eye is a complex disease and management often requires many solutions.

Finally a Turning Point

My rock bottom became the turning point. I started working with my dry eye specialist on a new plan, and started developing the early Blinkjoy prototypes just to regain my quality of life.

Today I live dry eye symptom free (with manageable flare ups throughout the year). I won’t lie to you, living symptom free requires a fair amount of work—but it is possible.

I personally have had all four of my tear ducts cauterized to help offset tear deficiency, I have my meibomian glands expressed once per year by my eye care provider, I use a special ointment to sleep at night to prevent corneal erosions, I sleep with the Blinkjoy Sleep Mask and perform a heat treatment once daily with the Blinkjoy Rechargeable Heat Mask that properly maintains the clinically recommended heat level of 42 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes.

In fact, I would attribute much of my success in managing symptoms to maintaining a daily preventative routine. For example, let’s talk about daily heat treatments. 

Heat therapy directly impacts the meibomian glands, which are responsible for producing the oil (meibum) that prevents tear evaporation by allowing it to flow more easily from the eyelids into the tear film. Heat has been shown to open clogged glands to restore proper oil secretion, and increases blood circulation to the eyelids, reducing inflammation and promoting glandular health.

It’s an amazingly simple solution, but most people are going about their heat treatments the wrong way, resulting in sub-par relief.

Studies show that the optimal temperature range for melting hardened meibum is between 38°C and 42°C, with an ideal duration of about 10 to 15 minutes. While heat therapy has long been recommended for dry eye management, many traditional methods have limitations:

• Warm washcloths cool too quickly and require repeated reheating, leading to inconsistent heat application.
• Microwavable compresses can overheat, posing a risk of burns, and may not maintain the optimal temperature range.
• Non-rechargeable electric masks often lack portability or require inconvenient power sources. So people end up quitting because the process of heat treatment becomes too much of a chore.

Thousands of Hours in R&D

That’s why I spent over two years and thousands of hours designing the Blinkjoy Rechargeable Heat Mask to overcome these challenges and deliver targeted, controlled heat therapy in a convenient, user-friendly way—because ultimately I needed something I could use myself every day. 

The key takeaway here is that you need the right tools and you need consistency in order to start addressing the root of your dry eye problem.

Dry Eye Will Never Go Away—But there is Hope

Unfortunately dry eye disease will never go away—it’s a life long struggle. But with the right tools and routine, it can be managed. Once I started refining my preventative dry eye routine each day, my symptoms started to improve. And I believe yours can too.

The sooner you address the root cause, the better your chances of regaining your quality of life, reducing painful symptoms, and finally living with comfortable, healthy eyes.

It's not just about feeling comfortable with your eyes again, it's about reclaiming your life. I no longer plan my day around dry eye discomfort. I can hike windy trails again. I enjoy ocean sports wearing contacts. I can make it through a 2 hour movie without thinking about which pocket I placed my drops in.

If you're trapped in the endless cycle of drops, discomfort, and eye doctor visits—you’re not alone in this. We’ve helped tens of thousands of people find relief, and we’d love to help you too. Find other great dry eye articles on our Education page or more about our Rechargeable Sleep mask here.