Dry Eye Treatment

While dry eye isn’t often seen as a serious condition, it can develop into a serious condition and have a major impact on your quality of life. You may find your eyes get tired faster or you have difficulty reading. Not to mention the discomfort of a burning sensation or blurry vision. Let’s take a look at dry eye treatments – from simple self-care to innovative prescriptions and therapies – to help you see clearly and comfortably.
 

What is Dry Eye?

Understanding dry eye will help you determine the best treatment option. Dry eye occurs when a person doesn't have enough quality tears to lubricate and nourish the eye. Tears reduce eye infections, wash away foreign matter, and keep the eye’s surface smooth and clear. People with dry eyes either do not produce enough tears or their tears are poor quality. It’s a common and often chronic problem, especially in older adults. A well-balanced tear film is necessary to supply oxygen from the environment to your cornea, the main window of your eye.
 

Preventive Self-Care

Before we delve into more serious dry eye treatment options, here are a few simple self-care options that can manage minor cases of dry eye.

• Blink regularly when reading or staring at a computer screen for a long time.

• Make sure there’s adequate humidity in the air at work and at home.

• Wear sunglasses outside to reduce sun and wind exposure. Wraparound glasses are best.

• Take supplements with essential fatty acids as these may decrease dry eye symptoms.

• Drink 8 to 10 glasses of water each day to avoid dehydration.

• Find out if any of your prescriptions have dry eye as a side effect and if so, see if you can take an alternative.
   

Artificial Tears

While artificial tears won't cure your dry eye, they can provide temporary relief. Here are a few tips for selecting the right one: 

• Low viscosity – These artificial tears are watery. They often provide quick relief with little or no blurring of your vision, but their effect can be brief, and sometimes you must use these drops frequently to get adequate relief.

• High viscosity – These are more gel-like and provide longer-lasting lubrication. However, these drops can cause significant blurring of your vision for several minutes. For this reason, high-viscosity artificial tears are recommended at bedtime.
• When choosing any artificial tear, it is best to go with a perservative-free option.

Prescription Dry Eye Treatments

There are several prescriptions that treat dry eye but most target one form of dry eye, inflammatory dry eye. Your eye doctor can advise the best option for your situation.

• Anti-inflammatory drugs – These are eye drops to control inflammation on the surface of your eyes (cornea) using the immune-suppressing medication cyclosporine (Restasis) or corticosteroids. 

Dry Eye Procedures

• Bipolar Radio-Frequency (RF) – This treatment helps to unblock oil glands and revitalize their ability to function and improve blood circulation of the periorbital area. While most heating devices are very superficial and may not completely liquify the blockages in your oil glands, bipolar radio-frequency can be used to target, liquify and stimulate the entirety of all of your oil glands. The procedure involves placing the bipolar radio-frequency probe over the eyelid with gentle massage/movement. The device delievers radio-frequency energy in a percise manner to the delicate areas of the eyelid in a safe manner.

• Intense-Pulsed Therapy (IPL) – This utilizes pulses of light that can specifically target the layers of the eyelid that contain your oil glands. It eliminates small superficial leaky blood vessels that often promote inflammation. It can help eliminate hardened material in your oil glands that cause blockages. It can also treat facial and ocular rosacea (red flushing of the skin).

You don’t have to suffer from the symptoms of dry eye. Talk to your optometrist about dry eye treatment options designed to address the underlying cause of your condition.