our vision
it all starts with conversations
extraordinary things happen when we pool our perspectives
need a conversation? join a Zoom group, or just call us.
read more about our vision
Rebecca Petris welcomes you to DEF.
and stories
because stories bring hope and empowerment, they combat the sense of isolation, and they offer a counter-narrative to a purely medical interpretation of our experiences.
pooling the reality of our experiences with dry eye disease, precious hard-won knowledge and wisdom from what we have lived - it’s magical, and it continuously informs the road to solutions that are as diverse as we are.
which help us imagine a future limited only by our imagination!
What if there were an 800 number that you could call because of dry eye? What if we patients had a say in criteria for dry eye drug approvals? What if our pain symptoms were the focus of scientific research? What if we could quit calling it “dry eye” and give it a meaningful name?
What’s your “what if”?
So what exactly is the Dry Eye Foundation doing?
1. documenting our community’s experiences
Browse results from about our ground-breaking community survey
2. HOSTING a national helpline for people who are struggling
Read more about our staffed helpline and how you can help
3. Fundraising
Give to the Foundation to help us fulfill our mission of making quality of life better for people suffering from dry eye disease.
4. Strategizing for long-term solutions
Subscribe to our mailing list (below) to keep up to date with our progress.
hope
because it gets better
Yes, it does. It actually does. Some people are cured. Certainly not all of us. But even for the rest of us, it gets better. It’s complicated. It’s messy. It’s not easy. It’s hard work. But… it really does get better.
& help
Help comes in many forms
A conversation. An idea. An interaction in a Facebook group. A smile, a laugh. A product that’s new to you. An obscure treatment. A local specialist. A cup of coffee with another patient.
call on us
We want to help
Contact us (voice, text, email), connect with a group, read posts on a forum. You do not need to be alone in this. There’s way too many of us for anyone to need to be alone. Let us help connect you.
our pledge to you: to listen well
to what the whole community is saying, because regardless of any one individual’s experience or expertise, none of us will know as much as all of us, and because every voice matters greatly and needs to be heard, and it is in that quiet listening place that we learn about the nature of problem-solving
THE SURVEY
In February 2021 we closed the Dry Eye Disease and Me Survey. It ran from July 2019 and will help us set our priorities as a Foundation and inform future research.
Thanks to the generosity of QuestionPro and its online survey platform, we are able to collect responses and distribute vital information to participants.
