Infertility with a side of Sjogren's

Last few days, my left eye was feeling a little swollen and itchy. I had been dealing with underlying eye infections for almost a year and they have been mostly annoying more than anything else, so I just continued my usual eye hygiene (yes I practice good eye hygiene!) and didn't think about it much. This morning when I woke up, both my eyes were painful. It hurt, everytime I blinked. So, I pulled out my handy Merck Manual and it looked like I had an infection of my tear glands/ducts causing "abnormal tear production" which leads to dry eyes which can lead to infections. Ok, nothing new there. Then, one sentence caught my eye. "Abnormal tear production may be due to a problem with the tear glands and ducts or due to a systemic disease that affects the tear glands, such as Sjogren's syndrome" (pronounced "show-grins" but you know what? I ain't smiling). I remembered coming across this Swedish sounding name in my reading about autoimmune diseases and POF. Looked on my computer to see if I could find the information again and sure enough some people with POF also have Sjogren's.

After reading some more about the symptoms, I suspect that I may have it. But, you know what the best part of this syndrome is? Sjogren's, like POF, is one of those things Dr's don't tend to catch or gets misdiagnosed. The average diagnosis time, according to the Sjogren's Syndrome Foundation, is 6 years. Which means that I may have to deal with a whole second set of Dr's for the Sjogren's on top of the Dr's I'm hoping to find to treat my POF and have a baby. A whole other slew of Dr's I may have to fight to get the appropriate testing done, a whole area to research so that I can properly take care of my condition in case the trained professionals aren't on top of things, not to mention any insurance battles I may have to contend with.

This is going to be a spankin' fun weekend.