Revisiting The Pink Eye Chronicles
What started out as a miserable infection became a deep education in eye health, dry eye, and how the smallest structures can reveal our body’s broader capacity for healing.
In this episode of Unreal Results, I share the story of my year-long journey recovering from a case of severe viral conjunctivitis. I share what a year of managing post-viral pink eye taught me about tissue health, mucosal resilience, and the link between local irritation and whole-body regulation.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
Why dry eye isn’t just a local problem and how barrier health shapes systemic inflammation
How environment, hydration, and screen habits influence the ocular surface and nervous system tone
How to bring the same curiosity you use with clients into your own self-care and recovery
Practical tools from omega-based drops to heat therapy that support eye and nervous system recovery
No matter what type of clients you work with this episode reframes the eyes as an extension of the nervous system and a window into tissue and immune health.
Resources & Links Mentioned In This Episode:
Episode 89: The Pink Eye Chronicles
Get the Cornea Care Warm Compress HERE*
Get the Peep Club Dry Eye Relief HERE*
Get the Peep Club Eye Makeup Remover Wipes HERE*
Get the Optive MEGA-3 Eye Drops HERE*
Get the Eminence Facial Recovery Oil HERE*
Learn the LTAP™ In-Person in one of my upcoming courses
*This link is an Amazon affiliate link, meaning I earn a commission from any qualifying purchases that you make
Considering the viscera as a source of musculoskeletal pain and dysfunction is a great way to ensure a more true whole body approach to care, however it can be a bit overwhelming on where to start, which is exactly why I created the Visceral Referral Cheat Sheet. This FREE download will help you to learn the most common visceral referral patterns affecting the musculoskeletal system. Download it at www.unrealresultspod.com
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Anna Hartman: Hey there and welcome. I'm Anna Hartman and this is Unreal Results, a podcast where I help you get better outcomes and gain the confidence that you can help anyone, even the most complex cases. Join me as I teach about the influence of the visceral organs in the nervous system on movement, pain and injuries, all while shifting the paradigm of what whole body assessment and treatment really looks like.
I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in.
Hello. Hello. Welcome back to another episode of the Unreal Results Podcast. I'm recording at 4:25 PM and it's getting dark. I think the sun's at like five o'clock today. And, uh, here we are on our way to winter. I don't love it. Still grateful that I'm by the beach though. Um, yeah, since that's at 4 55 today.
Don't, don't know if I'll make it. We'll see. But, um, I might go out for a nighttime walk. Um, we'll see. Uh, anyways, I'm distracted just because I'm like. Also, I feel like I'm in front of my desk light and it's just very bright. How do people do this with like a ring light? It hurts your eyeballs. Speaking of eyeballs, actually, that's what this podcast episode is about.
This may come as a surprise to some of you, but in two days. In two days, we will be at the year anniversary of the beginning of the Pink Eye Chronicles. Now I'm gonna have Joe link the Pink Eye Chronicles episode for you from last year or at one? I can't remember when I filmed that. I think it was during the, I think it was during it 'cause my eyes were bad. Um, some of, if you're new here, you're like, what the hell is she talking about? Um, I had last year, November 5th to be exact. Um, I had a severe case of viral conjunctivitis, AKA viral pink eye. And what I mean by a severe case is like I had a severe, what, what the doctor ophthalmologist told me was a severe infection and a severe infection in your eye comes with complications and comes with apparently not just a like short experience because if you've been following me over the year, you know that every three months now I have to go to the ophthalmologist for a checkup because one of the complications from severe viral pink eye was I got, um, a condition ker to something. I don't know. Words about eyeballs are hard. But, um, I, it's basically, um, white spots on my cornea, which blurs my vision.
And, um, so I'm on a immune suppressant and eye drop for that. Um, and it is a slow march towards improvement. Um, though it is still improving. And yes, after 12 months, there are still white spots on my cornea from the complication of severe pink eye. The other complication that I have, and Will, the doctor told me we'll probably have for life is, um, pretty severe dry eye.
Now, what I've learned, and this is actually why I wanted to do a podcast episode on this, because number one, sometimes it's hard to think about what I wanna talk about, but number two, um, I thought it would be cool actually to talk about all what I've learned over the last year about eye health in general and not eye health like vision.
But also vision, but not like, we're not gonna talk about like, doing eye exercises, so that's important. But we're just gonna talk about general health of our tissues, of our eye and, um, what I've learned and like what products that have been helpful for me. And, um, you know, those of you maybe, maybe those of you with vision challenges or with eye issues.
You already, maybe you already knew this. I never, I don't wear glasses. I've always had good vision. I, I've never had eye issues until last year when I got severe pink eye. Um, the biggest eye issue I ever had probably was a allergic conjunctivitis. Um, which is like, when I was a kid I had real bad hay fever and my eyes would get red and like swollen shut from that.
But that was temporary and allergic and it would go away as my allergies went away. And also I could treat it with Benadryl or Active Head, which was my favorite brand name, like Decongestion. Um, so anyways, what I, what I've learned actually most of what I've learned a along this is, um. About dry eye and um, ironically over the last month I've been having a dermatitis on my face, which has been a, um, ocular dermatitis as well.
And it's given me some major post-traumatic stress emotions going into this year, anniversary of severe pink eye. Um, because. You know, I've had similar like flare of just swelling around my lids, itchiness, um, an increase in my dry eye symptoms. And it just, you know, one, so the year anniversary of this is like, been on my mind because as my eyes were having this, um, ocular dermatitis, I was like, oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh, I can't go. I can't, I can't deal with viral pink eye again. Like that was one of the most uncomfortable long things I had to go through ever. And I don't ever want to go through it again. Like what? Um, so, uh, anyways, but the good news is, is because of. This journey with the dry eye, um, and, uh, spots my cornea when the ocular dermatitis did flare up, like at least I had like a plan of attack of like how to deal with it and how to like treat it, um, and treat the symptoms maybe of it a little bit better.
So, um. The fact of the matter is the doctor, you know, the doctor was like, you're probably gonna have dry eye forever now. Um, because of the severe infection. But he also was like, did you have dry eye before? Are you sure? No doctor ever told you that before? And I'm like, no. Yeah, you're right. Every, every time I went to the eye doctor, which was not often, because again, I didn't have vision issues, I, I went occasionally.
Um, what. That's a lie. I do have vision issues, but none that required glasses or contacts. I have a small astigmatism that I first found I had in college and, um, not even in college. In college, I found that I had, um, weakness in my eye muscles that cause some blurring vision. And I did, the doctor gave me eye exercises, like literally gave me pencil pushups and that helped it.
Um, and then, um, later that started bothering me again and the doc, the eye doctor I saw then instead of giving me exercises, put prisms in my in glasses for me for that 'cause it was like a little worse. Um. Then at some point that turned into, I have astigmatism, whether I had it all along or what, I don't know.
But, um, so occasionally at night my eyes would bother me that I thought was my astigmatism or I thought was my eye weakness because of the way the blurriness would get and. Since I've had pink eye, I now realize what I was actually having symptoms of was dry eye. And I, I did know I had dry eye on the occasions that I did go to the eye doctors either for a checkup or because this like, um, astigmatism or the, um, issue with my accommodation was acting up.
The doctor would always say, oh, well you've got some dry eye going on too. Like, make sure you're using. Eye drop regularly. That's the equivalent of the dentist being like, make sure you floss regularly. Like, okay, sure. Yeah, I will. No, I, I won't. I won't. I don't. I mean, occasionally I'll floss. Maybe this is why I have the dental issues, but my point is when doctors say stuff like that, sometimes it's like so common, right?
It's so common for a dentist to be like, you need to floss. You are gonna start flossing, right? Like you really should floss. Like you've got some plaque and some like beginnings of gingivitis. You should floss. And you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Same. I thought the eye doctor was the same thing.
They were like, oh, you got dry eye. I lived in Arizona for God's sakes for 14 years. I lived in the desert. And so I just was like, yeah, dry eye. I get it. Like there's no moisture in the air out here. And even the dentist was like, yeah, we live in the desert. It's really common. A lot of people have dry eye.
So and he was like, make sure you use drops regularly. And that was kind of like, make sure you floss your teeth regularly. And I was like, yeah, okay, I'll, I'll use these drops you give me. And then I never used the eyedrops because Why? Because nobody explained the symptoms of dry eye to me. Had someone had that dent, dentist had that optometrist or the I think it was just an optometrist. Had the optometrist at the time explained to me symptoms of dry eye. I would've been like, wait, that's also my symptoms, and I would've probably started using eye drops more regularly because there would've been a reason for it. This is the one part where it doesn't make sense with the flossing because there are symptoms and I just ignore it. 'cause I, I don't know, I hate flossing. So anyways, um, the symptoms are, well, ironically, the symptoms of dry eye besides blurry vision, like that's a big one. Blurry vision, tired feeling eyes, eye pain. Um, is. Watering eyes. Your eyes are watering a lot when you have dry eye.
I did not know this and I used to think this. I'd be like, oh. If my eyes are watery and I'm like, oh, this must be good for my dry eye, because clearly my eyes dry. So having some tears is good, right? But it's actually a symptom of dry eye that you're constantly tearing. This is actually how I probably got the viral pink eye in the first place.
In fact, I remember leading up to when I got the viral pink eye on this trip a year ago, I was having a lot of like constant like watering eye and I was like always wiping my eye, like wiping the corner of my eye over and over again. And, um. That's one of the lessons learned from this experience is don't fucking touch your eyes unless you've just washed your hands.
Do not touch your eyes unless you've washed your hands. I'm gonna say it one more time. Do not touch your eyes unless you've washed your hands. Um, but because my eye was watering a lot, nobody likes to have tears rolling down their face, so I was like constantly wiping my eye away. I must have touched a surface with the virus on it, which is most commonly the adenovirus, and then touched my eyeball and put the adenovirus right in my eyeball.
This is the crazy thing I learned also, and which is in the Pink Eye Chronicles, um, podcast episode, but the adenovirus lives on surfaces up to like 90 days. So again if you haven't just washed your hands, don't touch your eyes. Period. Um, so the symptoms of dry eye, blurry vision, tired eyes, like painful, achy eyes, uh, water and eyes.
Maybe there's more. Oh, well, it can also just feel like your dry eyes can feel gritty. It can feel itchy. Um. Uh, I also notice that when I have dry eyes, they're more puffy. Um, so those are all kind of symptoms. And, um, now the challenge is how do, how do you make them not dry anymore? Um, I think the reason I'm, so again, I'm not a last episode.
I was like, I'm not a doctor and I'm not your doctor. Still not a doctor. Still not your doctor. Um. Definitely not an ophthalmologist. Definitely not an optometrist. Uh, so I think though the reason why I always have dry eye is because the, the, the tissue layer, the barrier layer of my eye was so severely affected by the inflammation from the infection is that I don't have a very good barrier anymore to keep the moisture in my eyeball.
So one of the solutions for the dry eye and why I have to go back to the ophthalmologist every three months as well, not just for a checkup on the white spots on my cornea, and how that is improving, because that makes my vision blurry too, along with the dry eye, the blurry vision from the white spots to my cornea as the white spots go away should improve.
But the blurry vision from the dry eye improves as soon as your eye's not dry anymore. Which is why sometimes when we do get blurry vision, our instinct is to blink our eyes a bunch, which creates more tears and, and re gives us that barrier. Moisturizes our eyes and things are less blurry. That is our natural response to when we see blurry is to blink a lot.
Right. Um. So one of the things that they do, I have, um. Um, plugs in my tear ducts, they just drop these silicone plugs right in my tear butt ducts. And the reason for that is they're preventing the drainage of the fluid that's already in my eye. So there's a thought process of people with dry eye. Your fluid is naturally draining too fast.
And so if you put a plug in one of the drains, then you're um, more likely to keep it, keep your eyes moisturized. Um, the other thing is, um, the eyedrops, the artificial tears. I find that the eyedrops that have the flax seed oil in them, which is the brand called Refresh omegas, I think it is. Oh, have 'em right here.
Refresh Optive Omega-3. Preservative-free lubricant eyedrops. These ones I feel like are, these eyedrops were really good. I started using them during the, um, actual pink eye, um, when I was so dry because I felt like the other eye drops without the omegas in them. I could literally put 20, 20 Reusable, you know, 20 little eye drops. Nowadays, a lot of the times come in these little, um, one use, you know, like these one use container thingies.
I probably could have done 20 in my eyes every hour and still felt like no relief from the dry eye. Whereas when I switched to these ones, the, um, Optiv Omega-3, uh, lubricant eyedrops, um, I really felt like. It finally felt like it was lubricating my eye barrier redder. And that's because naturally we do have a layer of fatty acids, um, of lipids on our, um, lining of our eye that does help keep it moisturizing.
So it does restore that, um, fatty acid layer a little bit better. Um, so that's really helpful. Um, some of the things that are helpful in treating dry eye is just understanding things that cause dry eye. So, um, sleeping with a fan on is a big one. Um, being in front of a fan, like in the car when the air conditioning's.
Pounding on your face. Um, so again, living in Arizona, that was a huge thing. Um, the fans in my house, like big thing, I don't sleep with a fan on anymore. Um, all of those things kind of dry you out. So even being outside on a windy day that dries you out, um, screen time. The reason why screen time like exacerbates this dry eyes because when we're on screens, whether we're watching tv, we're on the computer working or we're on our smartphone staring at it, um, when we're focused on things we don't blink as much.
And when we don't blink as much our right, like it dries out. So sometimes just taking a regular break from the screen so you can close your eyes. And blink a little bit and have a more natural kind of like eye response, the better. Um, so those are kind of some huge pieces. And um, then the other things that I tend to do is, um.
I've been literally addicted to these warm compresses. Um, and I wear them every night. Um, and they, the warm compresses, like you get two benefits. The warmth sort of facilitates the, like glands in your eyes to secrete, um, the oils. Um, but then also since it's a barrier with a mask, you get some like heat condensation.
On your eyes as well. So that's a big one. Um, and then recently, so the, I'll link those in the show notes. Um, I get them on Amazon. You can't get 'em direct from the company too. Um, it's called Cornea Care. They're called, um, rescue, I think No rescue's the cold ones. Rest. Rest is the heated eye masks. Um, those have literally been, it's crazy 'cause I was like, wow, we're coming on a year.
That means for 11 months probably. 'cause I didn't start those immediately. I started them kind of in the end of the, towards the end of the month of the pink eye. You'll learn in that previous podcast, viral pink eye lasts about four weeks. Um, and as severely contagious the whole time, which is part of the misery was I couldn't leave the house.
Uh, but anyways, um, I've been using, oh, at least one mask a day for almost a year, which is crazy. I don't love that from a environmental standpoint, 'cause that's a lot of waste. Um, for something that I could get one that's like reusable, but also, um, knowing that I wanna keep my eye really clean. I like the single use because it means it's a little bit more, I don't wanna say sterile.
It's not sterile, but it's like, you know, not contaminated. Um, so. I mean, I'm still gonna use them. I would love to see if I can like, not need them every day. I just love how they feel though, and they do really help my dry eye. So we'll see. But um, recently I bought some new products from this company called.
Um, peep or Peep Club and um, they have some eye WA wipes that are like coconut oil based, that's supposed to be good and like an eye bomb. They also have this wand that is like a heated wand. I'm hoping that the heated wand will maybe replace the daily eye mask. Same kind of concept though. The heat helps simulate the, um, glands that secrete the oils.
And then, um, this one also has red and red light, blue light, and a green light to help too. Um. That might just be more from the puffiness and the like, retention of the fluids there. I don't know so much for the dry eye, but um, definitely the heating part of that wand I'm interested in. I just started trying it, so I, um, I mean, I guess I'll link it, but I don't, I have, I do not have my step of approval on it yet.
They also had this spray, um, that was like supposed to. I did say the spray was like shown in their research to help dry eye. Um, but the spray is like hyaluronic acid and some other things. Um, you spray it just right on your lids and um, then the coconut oil wipes. The theory with that was some of the wipes that have like trey oil and hyaluronic acid, apparently they can like break down things.
I've not heard that before, but that makes sense. So I like the idea of coconut oil being a little bit more natural, but I don't, so far, I don't love the feel of it, but I can get over the feel of it if it helps my dry eye. So I'm gonna try it for a month and see if it makes a huge difference, but. Um, and then I'm, like I said, I'm on that medication.
I drop medication too, uh, which is an immunosuppressant. Um, it's technically a dry eye treatment, but it is also for that white spots on my cornea. It's super expensive. It is something that I might be able, might be on for life, but I would really love to get off of it, but I won't get off of it until the way spots are gone.
So, um. Those are the big ones. I mean, like I said before, if I would've appreciated the symptoms of dry eye originally. Then years ago when the first optometrist told me I had dry eye, I would've treated it better. Oh, one of the things I learned too, actually from ophthalmologist, a neuro-ophthalmologist, um, I don't, I guess they're different.
You would think that an ophthalmologist is a neuro-ophthalmologist because your eyes are your brain. But also I think maybe, no, there's this certain specialty called neuro-ophthalmology. And um, my sister got evaluated by them once in relationship to like some brain central nervous system stuff that she was having going on and, um.
Anyways, during their evaluation, one of the tests they do is a peripheral vision test. And, um, they actually look at, it's not just like a peripheral vision test, like where, you know, how good it is, like measuring with like the bunny ears, um, but a peripheral vision test where they actually look at the cells in your eye and like can see which the cells that are responsible for like the peripheral vision.
Um, how healthy they are. And I remember her telling my sister that like the way the things were in her eye, the dryness was affecting those cells. And so she was basically saying that the dry eye, when it goes untreated, not only do you have blurry vision, but you start to lose your peripheral vision, which is very interesting too.
So again, like had I realized that dry eye. Was like an actual condition, right? Like the way it was already told to me, flippantly last minute in the eye doctor's office, the optometrist's office was like, oh, by the way, you also have dry eye, so make sure you use drops every day. Had it been told to me that dry eye was an actual condition, and not only wasn't it a condition, but these are the symptoms this causes, and when you don't treat it.
You progressively lose your peripheral vision. I probably would've taken it more seriously and started using eyedrops more regularly and started like just being better about like taking care of my peeps, my eyes. And I think that overall too, like this is just like as you age, I guess, too. Like you realize like, oh, I could have been taking care of my skin a lot better the whole, my whole life, and my gut health a lot better. And like, I think part of the reason too is when you're younger you just think you're invisible and like nothing's gonna affect you. And then as you age you realize like, oh, this vessel that I'm in this body has to last me for a long time and I want it to like be a good journey towards the end.
I don't wanna be in this vessel that is not well and and taking care of our eyeballs. Yes, from a visual health standpoint, but even from this like tissue standpoint, it's so important. And I speak in our co in our courses in the, you know, lt, a level one course. And when I talk about treatments, you'll, you, you've probably already on the podcast, I've heard me talk about like container and contents and also being able to treat from a structural standpoint and from a functional standpoint.
And so this is what it is, right? Uh, yes, all the eye function is important, but the container is important too. And understanding dry eye and all the things that you can do to support your moisture, your, your barrier of your eye to maintain your good, uh, eye health. And then therefore, I'm assuming what I know about the body, right?
Any mucosal lining plays a huge role in preventing infection and like facilitating an immune response. And so this is also going to help you be more resilient against infections like pink eye potentially, I would assume. Um, like when we can appreciate it from this, like we start to feel like, like, well, yeah, duh.
Like we brush our teeth, we clean our ears. Why did we not think we had to do stuff special for our eyes? Like our eyes are so important to us. And, um. It just, it gave me a lot of perspective and there are times that I was like, even now there are times that I was like, oh my gosh, I wish my like day, my routine wasn't revolving around my eye health.
But then I'm also like my eye, your eye health is so important for the function of our bodies, our movement, our nervous system, our. General wellness, like it's kind of silly, like to complain about like having it be a priority in self-care. Like, and again, like equal to the teeth. Like I don't love brushing my teeth every twice a day.
I don't love flossing. I still don't floss, but I use a water pick, so I kind of floss. But Right. It is like, I don't love those things. I don't love having to do that every day, but I just do it. It's part of my day. It's part of taking care of myself. It's like bathing. So, you know, maybe I should forget for, forget being annoyed with it and be grateful that I've learned these things about like all the products out there and all the ways that you can support your container of your eyeballs.
Because they are your brain. What? Like how would I, how Like of course I wanna take care of my brain. So hopefully that was helpful for you. Hopefully you, you're like, probably you're listening to this and you're like, oh my gosh, I think I have dry eye. You probably do. We probably all do. The doctor's not wrong when he said that.
We probably all do. But if we all knew why we should be caring for our eyes a little bit better then. Maybe we all wouldn't have a dry eye. So that's it. Hope you enjoyed it. We'll see you next time.