Many people today suffer with dry eye symptoms. You may be one of them. It’s a nagging, irritating ordeal that leaves your eyes either wet and runny, dry and sandy, or red and itchy. Whatever way you suffer with it, it’s not an easy thing to overcome or mollify.
What causes dry eye anyway? There are many culprits, but the most common are aging, allergies, medications, the wind, smoke, hormone changes, incomplete blinking, eyestrain, and a reduction in blinking frequency from looking at a computer for long periods of time.
The symptoms of dry eye can vary as well. You may have one or many of these, but the compounding of them only makes matters worse and more difficult to deal with. Signs of dry eye are stringy or crusty mucus, scratching, burning, stinging, redness, light sensitivity, foreign body sensation, tiredness, blurred vision, and watery eyes.
Why do your eyes water so much if they are dry? It’s a tear reflex. Think of it this way. You go into your kitchen; you’re not tearing. You open the refrigerator, no tears. You open the crisper drawer and get out an onion, still nothing. You get a knife and your cutting board, still good. Then the moment you cut that onion open, Niagara Falls! Why? Your eyes have a reflex tearing mechanism that whenever your eyes are irritated, it will flush out whatever is in them to alleviate the irritation. Your eye doesn’t discern from onion fumes, to an eyelash, or a small piece of grass from mowing your lawn. All it knows is your eyes are irritated, so flush them out! So it does, using your lacrimal gland as a kind of toilet tank to flush out the foreign material so you can get back to your best life. That’s why your eyes are often wet when they are dry. (People tell me all the time, “They’re not dry, they’re wet!”, but that’s the whole point. They are wet BECAUSE they are dry.)
So what’s a guy to do who suffers with this? There hasn’t been much in the distant past to fight this horrible nemesis, but as Bob Dylan so aptly put it 62 years ago, “The Times They Are A-Changing”. There are a few ways to fight dry eye including IPL, or Intense Pulsed Light Therapy, and LLLT or Low Level Laser Therapy.
LLLT, or photobiomodulation, is a non-invasive treatment using low power red or infrared light to reduce pain, inflammation, enhance tissue repair and stimulate cellular function. It is safe with very few side effects. In my office, we use it for dry eye treatment as well as infections, macular degeneration drusen, and stye treatment. The unit looks like a tanning booth for your face. The patient lays face up on a reclining bed with the lights 4-6 inches from their face. They keep their eyes closed the whole time (15 minutes), and the lights are very bright, but also very tolerable, and, also can be relaxing. I have dozed off a time or two during my time under the lights. It’s easy to do. The usual protocols are eight 15 minute treatments, usually 2 per week (so 4 weeks). The cost is not covered by insurance or medicare and runs $600 for the 8 sessions. Sometimes people need more sessions, depending on the severity of their symptoms. And that is often done as well.
IPL is noninvasive, and uses high intensity, broad spectrum light to target skin issues from dry eye (which is caused by inflammation), to sun spots , rosacea, and even wrinkles. The light pulse gets rid of the inflammation in and around the eyes so the meibomian glands can function better. And they do. This usually takes 4 sessions, usually once a week or two. The treatment is about $350-$400 a session, so it’ll cost about $1400 for four sessions, but for those suffering with dry eye, it’s really worth it. Then, down the road, if your eyes ever get dry again, you can get individual sessions to touch you up if you need it. There are limitations and darker skin tones are generally not safe to use it because it can change your pigmentation, or the color of your darker skin.
Are you ready to get rid of your dry eye symptoms? There is a light at the end of the tunnel for you, and it’s called LLLT, or IPL. Call or check it out at our office. We’d be glad to give you some more information.
