OUR STORY
Dry Eyes, Dry Mouth is a web series for the millions of people worldwide who suffer from Sjogren’s Syndrome, a chronic condition whose hallmark symptoms are dry eyes and dry mouth.
Sjögren’s (pronounced SHOW-grins) is a chronic autoimmune inflammatory disease in which people’s white blood cells attack their moisture-producing glands. Four primary symptoms include fatigue, joint pain, dry eye and dry mouth, but Sjögren’s may also cause dysfunction of other organs such as the kidneys, gastrointestinal system, blood vessels, lungs, liver, pancreas, and the central nervous system.
With upwards of four million Americans suffering from Sjögren’s, it is one of the most prevalent but less known autoimmune disorders. This is because Sjögren’s is not a “cookie-cutter” disease, and is often overlooked or misdiagnosed since symptoms can manifest in various ways and affect every patient differently.
For Sjogren’s Syndrome patients, there are no easy answers and many people find themselves isolated and battling this disease alone. Thanks to many FB groups, this is changing. But we wanted to go further and document on video the lives of several people as they deal with the ever-changing health issues brought on by this disease.
It is our hope that after spending a year documenting several patients in America, that this project will be passed on to other patients in another country who will tell their story and document how they fare with their health system.
By sharing, Sjogren’s patients and their caregivers will be able to communicate best practices in terms of dealing with the disease until a treatment or cure is found.