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Exactly reason for Dry Eyes with vitamin a poisoning / Accutane
I would be interested in how Accutane / - Vitamin A damages the body/-eye that it leads to dry eyes.
I ask because I want to test a drug called Clomid / Clomiphene, which works in the pituary gland for providing more LH hormone, which in turn should improve my low testosterone, estradiol levels etc. Now, with this drug, side effects of the eyes and vision are in the foreground and often occur, unfortunately, persistent after weaning sometimes.
I am concerned that maybe Accutane / vitamin A also had a negative influence on the pituitary gland and with this intake I worsen it again and the risk of eye side effects is increased even more.
I have already tried teststerone replacement therapy and many herbal supps to increase my low values.. TRT and is not an option for me again. Besides the possible eye side effects, Clomid sounds very good in theory and I definitly have to do something because of this low levels.
So for me it is not about starting a testosterone / hormone/drug - discussion. I am only interested in the scientific and medical point of view what is known about dry eyes with regard to vitamin A and on which mechanisms it is based. So that I can assess whether I have an increased risk of side effects to the eyes from previous Accutane taking.
Thanks in advance!
Hi Joel,
Here's a link to a study that documents the causal action.
UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley Previously Published Works
Title
Effects of isotretinoin on meibomian glands
Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/41k4v4h1
Journal
Optometry and Vision Science, 92(9)
ISSN
1040-5488
Authors
Moy, A
McNamara, NA
Lin, MC
Publication Date
2015-01-01
DOI
10.1097/OPX.0000000000000656
Peer reviewed
Basically, the action of RA on the cells of meibomian glands is the same as it is on stem cells in other tissues. It destroys them, and the dead and malformed replacement cells cause the glands to become blocked and dysfunctional.
Hi @are,
Although it is reported that accutane damage is permanent, I do believe that there is hope, and that with time the body can repair from that damage.
Even though I did not take accutane, I too went through a period of about 6 months of having extremely dry eyes. My eyes did recover and are now fine.
There is another Accutane victim who reported that he had developed both IBD, and twisted hip bones. It sounds like he’s now made a full recovery from the IBD, and some bone recovery. But I’m not sure about how close his bone structure returned to normal.
So, the damage is not always permanent. I really wish there was more we could do to speed up the process, and make it safer. Using this elimination diet alone is clearly not a great solution, and is very slow.
@are Do not despair! Or rather remember that despair is perfectly ordinary on a reduced vA diet. This is a sure sign that vA is leaving your organs and circulating. So the diet is working inasmuch as it reduces the amount of vA in your body.
As to the dry eyes, mine have completely disappeared by now (I year). I do feel a vague dryness in the left eye when I have bouts of bad detox, but really if I had not suffered horribly for years before I would not notice it at all.
Maybe it will come back at some point, but if it is transient it is not such a problem.
This used to be my worse symptom. Now my worst symptom is anxiety and despair. ;-(. I hope this will not last for many years! Linked to my ongoing blindness and the fear that I met with Grant's work too late to save my eyes.
All in all I am better and quite hopeful. Be well! Cheer up! Maybe this is all a dream?
Clomid is an awful drug, I don't recommend it. I don't want to hijack the thread but I think VA-testosterone relationship should be discussed further, especially because some physiologists say that VA is required to make tesosterone. At the very least, VA induces the enzymes that convert cholesterol into pregnenolone and testosterone. But maybe that's just yet another of VA's short and intensive positive effects that later turn around, and then has the opposite effect. And maybe once a person has detoxed VA for long enough, the relevant enzymes are restored to normal fucntioning.
@ggenereux2014 Thank you !!
Yes, clear...clomid is not a goody. I would prefer to take no medication...but my values are so bad that the red blood cells and oxygen transport, which is related to testosterone, are reduced / testosterone is needed for this.
The main thing is to see whether an increase is good for me, because testosterone, for example, also inhibits the immune system, which is very overactive in my case with myalgic encephalomyelitis..so let's see. In any case, I came to the conclusion that if I take a drug for it - Clomid makes the most sense in my case, because of the the low pituitary gland hormones..maybe the pituitary / hypothalamus axis is not properly functioning, because of M.E., I dont know.
May I still ask why you devalue Clomid so much, have you read bad things about it, or knows someone who has taken it? I am still researching a lot about it and collecting pros and cons. I would stop as soon as I got eye side effects. But as I said, I would only take 12.5mg every other day, which is the lowest possible dose...There is also the question of what is more harmful to the body such low hormone levels and its long-term consequences or the drug
I, too, experience the eye issues at night or early morning. But I used to have it all day and night long. Only maybe since I quit the eye drops back maybe in 2012 or so the so called dry eyes went away. I now think it wasn't so much dry eyes but the sensation the overload of Vitamin A and the Retinoid Acid does to the membranes of the eye causing an immune reaction. The eye drops ended up burning my eyes in the end so I assumed I became allergic to them. I then switched to making my own filtered saline solution to moisture my eyes and now I don't hardly use that even. Except early morning I spray a mist on my pained eyes and it works to ease in moisture or soothe the burned membranes from what I now realize a VA overload. I really am not sure but it helps. I am hoping my diet change will help.
1 - Meibocytes and sebocytes are similar. Retinoids cause sebocyte apoptosis, therefore it's plausible that they cause meibocyte apoptosis as well.
2 - Both meibocytes and sebocytes have androgen receptors, and rely on them for lipid production. Retinoids are anti-androgenic and will therefore disrupt that process.
Also, another reason could be PPAR-gamma silencing. Retinoids absolutely decimate the expression of that gene.
On the contrary, PPAR-gamma agonists like pioglitazone were shown to increase sebum production.