What is Dry Eye?
Dry Eye is a common condition that effects millions of Americans every year. It happens when your tears don’t work correctly, such as not producing enough or poor-quality tears. This tear instability leads to inflammation and damage of the eye's surface. This can make your eyes feel uncomfortable, and in some cases it can also cause vision problems.
Some symptoms of dry eye include scratching, stinging, or burning feelings in your eye, red eyes, light sensitivity, and blurry vision. Treatment for dry eye usually depends on what’s causing your symptoms. There are a few different types of treatment that can ease your symptoms and help keep your eyes healthy.
Prevention
If you experience dry eyes, simple lifestyle changes may help prevent your dry eyes symptoms. For instance:
- Avoid air blowing in your eyes. Don't direct hair dryers, car heaters, air conditioners or fans toward your eyes.
- Add moisture to the air. In winter, a humidifier can add moisture to dry indoor air.
- Consider wearing wraparound sunglasses or other protective eyewear. Safety shields can be added to the tops and sides of eyeglasses to block wind and dry air.
- Take eye breaks during long tasks. If you're reading or doing another task that requires visual concentration, take periodic eye breaks. Close your eyes for a few minutes. Or blink repeatedly for a few seconds to help spread your tears evenly over your eyes.
- Be aware of your environment. The air at high altitudes, in desert areas and in airplanes can be extremely dry. When spending time in such environments, it may be helpful to frequently close your eyes for a few minutes at a time to minimize evaporation of your tears.
- Position your computer screen below eye level. If your computer screen is above eye level, you'll open your eyes wider to view the screen. This may help slow the evaporation of your tears between eye blinks.
- Stop smoking and avoid smoke. If you smoke, ask your health care provider for help devising a quit-smoking strategy that's most likely to work for you. If you don't smoke, stay away from people who do. Smoke can worsen dry eyes symptoms.
- Use artificial tears regularly. If you have chronic dry eyes, use eye drops even when your eyes feel fine to keep them well lubricated.
Schedule an Appointment Today
Ready to take the next step? Schedule an appointment with one of our friendly and knowledgeable optometrists today. We offer convenient online booking and flexible hours to accommodate even the busiest schedules.
What dry eye treatments do we offer?
Prescription Medications
If your dry eye is more serious, your eye doctor may give you a prescription for eye drops.
Prescription medicines used to treat dry eyes include:
- Medicines to reduce eyelid inflammation. Inflammation along the edge of your eyelids can keep oil glands from secreting oil into your tears. Your eye care specialist may recommend antibiotics to reduce inflammation. Antibiotics for dry eyes are usually taken by mouth, though some are used as eye drops or ointments.
- Eye drops to control cornea inflammation. Inflammation on the surface of your eyes (cornea) may be controlled with prescription eye drops that contain the immune-suppressing medicine cyclosporine (Restasis) or corticosteroids.
Punctal Plugs
If tears are draining too quickly from your eyes, one option to treating dry eyes is plugging the openings to the tear ducts with tiny silicone plugs (punctal plugs). These plugs close the tiny opening (punctum) that you have in the inner corner of your upper and lower eyelids and can help keep your tears in your eyes.
Scleral Contact Lenses
Standard soft lenses sit on the cornea, which can be extremely irritating for dry eye patients. They also act as sponges, soaking up the moisture on the surface of the eye. For dry eye patients, these factors make wearing standard contact lenses virtually unbearable. Scleral lenses, on the other hand, sit on the sclera (the white of the eye) and vault over the cornea. The lenses don’t touch the corneal surface at all, thereby minimizing irritation.
Scleral lenses can drastically improve quality of life: Patients with dry eyes struggle with pain, discomfort, eye exhaustion, confidence issues due to severe eye redness, and more. Scleral lenses do three things at once for these patients: they provide vision correction, they protect the eye, and they serve a therapeutic purpose by lubricating the eye. These factors can improve the quality of life of people with dry eye disease. They decrease pain and/or discomfort, eye redness, the need to repeatedly scratch the eyes or apply eyedrops, and simultaneously provide crisp, clear vision during wear.
Apollo Amniotic Membrane Grafts
Apollo is a human amniotic membrane allograft disc designed to help facilitate and enhance ocular tissue repair. The innate properties of amniotic membrane make it an ideal product for expedited wound healing in ocular care. Apollo membranes are processed human amniotic tissue products recovered from live, healthy, pre-screened donors during scheduled cesarean childbirth. After passing the rigorous donor screening process, the Medical Director deems the tissue to be suitable for transplantation. The tissue is then sterilized using low-dose, low-temperature gamma irradiation. Amniotic membrane tissue is immune privileged therefore patient rejection rarely occurs.
Apollo membranes can be used to treat moderate to severe dry eye as well as:
- Ocular Surface Disorders
- Corneal Epithelial Defects
- Corneal Ulcer
- Pterygium
- Band Keratopathy
- Bullous Keratopathy
- Chemical/Thermal burns of the ocular surface
- Herpes simplex keratitis
- Contact lens-induced keratopathy
- Toxic effects from lens-cleaning solutions
- Stevens-Johnson Syndrome
Apollo is comfortable and is simply placed in a contact lens for insertion. The amniotic tissue reduces inflammation, pain, and scar tissue formation. The amniotic membrane will incorporate and dissolve into your cornea over the course of 3-7 days during which the condition should improve. The doctor will want to see the patient again a few days post-placement to remove the bandage contact lens and examine the eye.
Lipiflow® Treatment
WHAT IS LIPIFLOW® DRY EYE TREATMENT?
LipiFlow® is an FDA-approved treatment for Meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD) — the leading cause of dry eye. IN fact, 86% of dry eye cases are linked to Meibomian Gland Dysfunction (MGD). Meibomian glands are the tiny gland on the eyelids. These glands are responsible for releasing the natural oil. People produce the oil with each blink to coat the tears helping to keep our eyes comfortable and moist. MGD occurs when the glands do not function properly. If left untreated, the glands can undergo changes leading to degeneration of the glands and permanent damage.
LipiFlow® treats MGD by warming and massaging the inside of the eyelids to restore healthy oil production and improve tear quality.
Patients are evaluated to determine whether they suffer from MGD using LipiScan, an imaging device specifically designed to view the Meibomian glands.
How Does LipiFlow® Work?
- The doctor will use the LipiScan imaging device to examine your Meibomian glands. This will help ensure that the procedure will be a benefical treatment for you.
- Prior to the procedure, anesthetic drops will be placed in your eyes.
- When your eyes are fully numb, your doctor will place the LipiFlow® sterile, single-use activators under and over your eyelids without actually touching the surface of the eye.
- Once the activators are in place, the procedure takes about 12 minutes. The process begins with the activators exerting a constant pressure for the first two minutes as they warm to a temperature that begins to dissolve the gland obstructions. Over the next 10 minutes, using what’s called Vector Thermal Pulsation technology, the activators cycle through differing levels of pressure, providing the massage that starts the natural flow of oil.
Studies show that while some patients experience some discomfort from the procedure, most find it very tolerable.
What Are the Benefits of LipiFlow®?
After a LipiFlow® treatment, the Meibomian glands begin normal production of oils that are necessary for maintaining high-quality tears. These oils keep the tears from evaporating too quickly, thus improving the overall health of the surface of the eye.
In addition, a reduction in dry eye may improve visual clarity. It usually takes about six to eight weeks to achieve optimal results, but relief can last up to 12 months.