Navigating Thyroid Eye Disease in Different Climates/Environments

Thyroid eye disease (TED) continues to surprise me, even as I am in the inactive phase and my symptoms are stable. Some of my most recent surprises came when I traveled to other states during different times of the year.

Home base

Most of my time with thyroid eye disease has been spent at home in New York, and I haven’t traveled much in the past few years. I did go to Italy on my honeymoon the first year of TED, and I didn’t notice anything significantly different during my trip (though that was during my active phase - everything was going haywire every day). And then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Even as it got safer to travel, I mostly stayed in New York as I was awaiting my multiple surgeries for TED. With my luck, of course the second my family and I planned and paid for a trip I would get a call from the hospital saying my surgery was scheduled for that week.

With my surgeries behind me, I started traveling a bit more to see family and was occasionally very surprised with how different environments aggregated my TED symptoms.

I think it’s worth noting in this discussion that while I am stable, my eyes are different than they were before TED. Notably, the whites of my eyes are more exposed (perhaps that is why I navigate ongoing dryness), and after this whole ordeal I am acutely aware of how my eyes feel at all times.

Thyroid eye disease in different climates

Summer in California

My in-laws live in mid/northern California, and unfortunately they are always on alert for fires. Any type of smoke bothers my eyes, so I knew that going there during the summer was risky. But it had been so long since we had visited and the timing was right considering other things in our lives.

I reasoned that I could mostly stay inside if I needed to, and stay inside I did. I recall one outing where everyone else was having a great time at a local river, but I was very sensitive to the smoke from a few towns over that started to affect our air quality.
I eventually took my husband aside and explained why I needed to go inside. I opted out of other outings during that trip.

Late spring in Florida

I normally like to visit my family in Florida during the fall/winter, but I made a special trip in the late spring to meet my new niece. Everything was fine until I stepped outside at lunch time without sunglasses. Woah! The light hit me and I immediately needed to close my eyes. I was only walking my sister to her car a few yards away, but I felt like I could hardly open my eyes the light was so bright. Light sensitivity was never one of my TED symptoms, but I guess I had never navigated the mid-day summer sun so far south. Fortunately, sunglasses helped.

Early fall in California (years later)

Everyone was still on the lookout for fires during my fall trip, but at least we had passed the summer season. Hopefully this would be better. Unfortunately, my eyes were not prepared for how dry the climate was. My eyes were definitely very unhappy outside, and my eyes were also unhappy inside with the air conditioner blasting (the high reached over 90 degrees most days). I attempted to combat the dryness with ongoing artificial tears throughout the day but my eyes were grateful to return to New York.

Making informed travel decisions after thyroid eye disease

While I don’t want TED to dictate where/when I travel, learning about and considering different climates/environments at least will help me make informed decisions and be prepared for future trips.

Have you noticed a difference in your symptoms when you travel?