Dry Eye
Dry eye disease is the most frequent reason that patients visit eye doctors.
Dry eye is a common problem that may result in symptoms of eye discomfort, blurred vision and possible damage to the surface of the eye.
People with dry eye symptoms use different methods to ease their discomfort.
Most patients do not know it, but your eye’s tears are made up of three separate layers: a mucus layer that coats the eye and holds the liquid part of the tear to the eye; a water layer which is what most people think of when they think of tears; and an oily—or lipid—layer which floats on top of the other two layers and keeps your tears from evaporating or spilling off your eye onto your cheek.
For some people, relief of their dry eye symptoms is incomplete because there is a lack of the oily layer of the tear film. This oily layer is produced by glands, called meibomian glands, which release oils from openings along the lining of the eyelids. If your eye’s glands become blocked, dry eye symptoms can occur.
Symptoms of Dry Eye:
- Dryness
- Grittiness
- Scratchiness
- Soreness
- Irritation
- Burning
- Watering
- Eye fatigue
- Fluctuating vision problems that can only be corrected by blinking.
Do you think you might be suffering from dry eye?
Take our dry eye SPEED QUESTIONNAIRE.
Around 65% of dry eye symptoms are caused by evaporative dry eye. This means that your eye is lipid deficient, or does not have enough of the oily tear layer.
Until the introduction of LipiView, your eye doctor did not have a way to show that you were lipid deficient.
LipiView uses a special, digital image of your eye that allows our doctors to see and measure the lipid layer of your tear film.
Your doctor is then able to evaluate what, if any, tear therapy you would benefit from.
LipiView only takes about 5 minutes and is done in our office. You will simply look into a camera and blink normally. A special light, camera and computer program do everything else.
Evaporative dry eye takes a period of years to develop. Many longtime sufferers of dry eye have been forced to plan their day around expensive medications and time consuming hot compresses. Not only are these treatments inconvenient, but they’re often ineffective too.
LipiFlow uses a single-use eyepiece to relieve blockage of the meibomian glands during a treatment here at our office. Most patients liken the treatment to a “hot stone massage” for your eyelids. Controlled warmth and gentle massaging allow blocked glands to open. The body can then resume its natural production of lipids needed for your tear film.
Most patients who have LipiFlow have relief in two weeks or even sooner. In a clinical study, 79% of patients reported improvement in their dry eye symptoms at 4 weeks.