Treatment Help for Dry Eye
After a thorough dry eye consultation, we will be able to make a proper diagnosis as to the particular cause of your dry eye syndrome and prescribe the necessary tear substitutes, prescription medications such as Restasis® or Xiidra® eye drops, punctal plugs and/or other options to help restore your tear film to normal and make you more comfortable. If you have mild or even moderate dry eyes, the first course of treatment may be to use specific types of artificial tears that have different characteristics in terms of salt content and viscosity. There may some environmental factors that you need to alter to make you more comfortable such as how and where you are exposed to heat ducts or fans blowing as well as attempting to keep the areas that you spend a great deal of time in at a proper humidity level. Sometimes, if the oily layer of the tear film is deficient, we may suggest that you increase your consumption of oily fish or even take flax seed oil as a dietary supplement or other dietary supplements. Most likely you will be asked to drink plenty of water. In instances where these approaches do not help relieve your dry eye symptoms, we may suggest the insertion of tiny punctual plugs that will slow down or even stop the drainage of tears from the eye. These plugs are easily and comfortably placed in the Lacrimal Puncta in your eyelids. Initially, you may have a temporary dissolving plug put in place to see if your dry eye symptoms are responsive to this treatment. If the results are good, it may be necessary to place a more permanent type of plug to affect a long-term solution. For patients with moderate to severe dry eyes, we may prescribe Restasis® or Xiidra® eye drops with or without some of the other treatments to help alleviate your dry eye symptoms. If we find an underlying low-grade inflammatory or infectious process it may be necessary to also prescribe an oral antibiotic such as tetracycline and/or an anti-inflammatory eye drop such as a corticosteroid eye drop. As you can see, the diagnosis and treatment of dry eyes are complex and requires patience and persistence on the part of the doctor and the patient. With careful diagnosis and a systematic therapeutic approach, we can usually help dry eye sufferers.
