Chemo tears

I am having a lot of watery eyes these days, probably from chemo. It's almost a constant problem lately. Anyone else having this and if you had it and it went away, how long did that take?

[Dan59]

I think it is the chemo, I have had watery eyes for months, I just dry them.

[Hidden in reply to Dan59]

Thanks. It's starting to get old, that's for sure. I read that it eventually goes away for most people.

[mlengle]

Hi Dan59,

Both eyes began to tear up towards the end of my chemo treatments. It was bad enough it became difficult to drive at times. My onc confirmed it was the Taxetere and sent me to an eye specialist who can work on tear ducts. The eye specialists explained the chemo shrinks the tubes, located in the eye corners close to the nose. These tubes ( I think there are 2 tubes per eye but not sure) drain the tears into the back of the throat. When the tubes shrink the tears flow out over the eye lid. She ran a very long needle into the tubes to open them up and put a plug in one which was removed several weeks later in an attempt to open them. This helped quite a bit but both eyes still are a bit watery at times but not enough to I have to wipe them. The treatments were 10 months ago. The doctor said the tubes will not get better on their own.

You might want to consider seeing an appropriate eye doctor. It is fixable.

Hope this helps.

[Hidden]

I read in Chuck Maack's observations

theprostateadvocate.com/obs...

that the chemo burns the tear ducts and that flushing your eyes frequently with saline eye drops during infusion helps prevent this. It sounds to me that oncs and nurses are sadly uninformed about this countermeasure. Also consider cold packs for hands and feet to minimize peripheral neuropathy.

I personally am chemo naive, so my comments are only from research and information posted on forums by PCa patients.

Good Luck!

[Dan59]

Mlengle and Clint, Thanks for your response, I do not think it is bad enough for me to have needle to the eye, I do like the idea of saline drops during Chemo, as our friend Chuck suggested, I had heard that before as well.

Thank You for your response ,

Dan

[sdnb]

My husband experienced the watery eyes at the beginning of his chemo. He was tabbing at his eyes frequently and kept tissues with him. His vision was effected by the blurriness, so don't be alarmed. I would say this particular side effect probably lasted about 6 to 9 months. Docetaxel was his chemo. I will be perfectly honest with you, right up front, because no one was that way for us. It was such a disservice to not be more direct.with my husband. But docetaxel (taxetere) had huge effects on his body. He was on it 2 years, with a few "vacations" off every so often. His quality of life was so very sad that he finally took himself off. I pray that God will bless you with better results. Be strong.

[Hidden in reply to sdnb]

Thanks for the perspective. These days, all these various side effects are now just part of the "new normal" life we all have with this disease. One of the most difficult things is to decide between not what things we actually want, but which is the lesser of evils. So far, the cancer has been worse than everything else, but I have to keep considering the effects of treatment on the quality of life. We all want more than just to keep our hearts beating and every time I turn around, I feel I am making another sacrifice in my quality of life for the cancer. It's difficult.

[JimVanHorn]

I could be the type of chemo. I am on Lupron (Eligard) and without androgens I am estrogen driven and can not stop watering eyes. Normal women have 30% testosterone, but now I am 100% estrogen and can not control emotions as well as before.