Artificial tears
Lubricating eye drops are actually at the top of the list for a
major reason. Not just that artificial tears add lubrication to the eye but they
actually help prevent damage to the surface of the eye from chronic dryness so
in the clinic we actually use a yellow medication called fluorescein sodium and we put that on the eye.
There are little dry spots on the eye these little dry spots off
to the side, those are actually like little tiny divots on the surface of the eye so the eye should be
smooth like glass when they're really dry those cells on the surface of the eye
actually, get damaged and we call that superficial
punctate keratitis.
Superficial punctate keratitis is basically dead cells
caused by this dryness on the surface and the body tries to heal that those
damaged cells with inflammation now the problem is that when the eye starts
having inflammation it's like adding gasoline to fire it often makes things
worse.
So one of the big things about using those dry eye drops or
artificial tears are to prevent inflammation from really grabbing hold and
making things worse so if your doctor has prescribed to you
Amniotic membrane
If you have chronic dry eyes then there is a newer treatment called an amniotic membrane. In this treatment dry dehydrated amniotic tissues that
is their in eye clinics or they have frozen amniotic tissues they use these
for people who have bad chronic burns on the eye people who have any sort of
bad tissue damage fto the cornea.
This amniotic tissue is
fantastic it adds a lot of different antibodies to the eye it is harvested from a woman or from a pregnant woman's amniotic sac it's cleaned sterilized
and then it's either frozen or dehydrated and we can put that on the cornea for
a short time and it helps pretty much clear
off a lot of inflammation from the surface of the eye
Autologous serum
It's basically where they do a blood draw, you actually need your
doctor to write a prescription to send it to them to the actual to the phlebotomist to do a blood draw they
actually, centrifuge your separated blood.
It's basically separating your plasma from your blood cells and that's the easiest
way to think about it they're actually making artificial tears liquid
artificial tears from your own blood antibodies all the white you know you
basically separate the blood cells so you're just using basically the plasma of
the eye and you actually put your plasma of you love your blood and you use
that as an artificial tear.
Advantages
- It helps your body's own immune system fight off the dryness.
The downside is again you need a prescription you need to go to
the pharmacy and go to the phlebotomist get it drawn they have to prepare it
and not every pharmacy or phlebotomist will do this not every lab will do this
so you have to fight your doctor has to find a lab that does it and I think
that's one of the reasons why a lot of doctors don't prescribe it.
Scleral contact lenses
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| Scleral contact lenses Image By-Wikipedia | Image Source- L8rgator |
Scleral contact lenses are an excellent
treatment for dry eyes as long as you're able to put them in taking them out
safely sclera lenses are kind of new. They're kind of coming back into how you
can treat you can treat a lot of things with sclera lenses certainly keratoconus but also dry eyes
Basically, you fill that lens full of liquid in the contact lens
kind of seals around the sclera on the white part of the eye and holds that
liquid to the surface of the eye so that basically the eye the cornea is bathed
in the liquid all day long now often times people with severe dry eyes may have to
take these out refill the liquid and replace it maybe a couple times a day but
in terms of a dry eye option, it's pretty cool.
Sclera lenses have been
around for a long time but it's kind of come back and the new designs have come
out so it's really great.
Lipiflow
In this procedure, there is actually a device that goes on the eye
and it actually supplies heat and pressure
to your eyelids and the whole point of that is actually to get the oil glands in the meibomian glands.
Meibomian glands are
they're these little vertical glands that run on the top and bottom portion of
your eyelids and they actually secrete this oil that prevents your tears from
evaporating now the real concern is that these oil glands eventually will die
off if they get clogged or they become inflamed and they don't work anymore and
then your tears evaporate almost instantly.
Lipiflow can help get
these oil glands open up if that doesn't happen these oil glands can
actually, die off.
