A question about drops.....

[davinci23]

Hi Experts,

Right now I'm suffering from bad dry eye (nearly 7 weeks post-Lasik) and I'm having to put drops in like every 30-45 minutes or I get that dry eye feeling. If I stretch it to an hour then my eyes have that really really dry eye feeling. Part of the problem is that since it January right now, its cold and low humidity.

In a separate thread Glenn hinted about a balance of flooding the eyes with artificial tears and proper lubrication.... While my doc said there is no such thing as too much tears (preservative free), can I mess up the balance of the 3 so called layers? I mean I can't harm that balance permanently right? When my dry eye decides to start being merciful to me and my eyes start tearing again, me doing the 30 minute lube won't mess me up right? Apologize ahead of time if these are "dumb" questions.

BTW, one set of drops to add to the artificial tear page, http://www.usaeyes.org/lasik/faq/lasik-artificial-tear.htm, is the preservative free Refresh Optive. Its has worked pretty good for me.

FYI, from my personal experience so far, the drops that have worked decently for me so far is: Refresh Optive and Systane Ultra. I've tried the Bion, Genteal Severe Dry Eye, and Soothe XP but those didn't work so well for me. At night the Refresh PM ointment has worked well. Note I'm only using the preservative free versions of these.

Thanks......

[LasikExpert]

There are no dumb questions in this forum.

Flooding the eyes with artificial tears would only temporarily disrupt the balance of the three layers to the natural tears. There is nothing in the medical literature that indicates any permanent change to tear function would occur.

One could speculate that extreme lubrication with artificial tears to the point that the body does not need to create any tears over a long period of time (years?) may cause the body to reduce production of natural fluids, but production would undoubtedly return to normal levels after the application of artificial tears is stopped. I don't see anything in the literature that affirms this theory, but it is intuitive.

[davinci23]

Thanks for the info Glenn..... Fingers crossed that the dry eye will stop soon for me......

BTW, saw a lot of posts regarding Refresh Endura. Its not available in the US anymore but its still sold in Canada.....

[DocH]

Hi old dry eyes here,
My eyes are begining to come around and its just on the 8 MONTH mark.
If I do this again (ie have a touch up) I wouls be far more aggresive with thicker stuff.
I would recomend Genteal Gel on a frequent basis and non-preservative Refresh lacrilube ointment at night. For drops I found Blink and systane ultra the best for me.
On the diet side, lots of salmon/trout and Flax oil capsules 1000mg once or twice a day
Hope this helps