Dry Eye Treatment Can Relieve Your Uncomfortable Symptoms
Itchy, red, or sensitive eyes can make everyday life more difficult. Although many patients think that over-the-counter eye drops are the solution to many of their problems, this is not the case. If you suffer from dry eyes, you need a professional diagnosis in order to receive the most effective treatment and achieve relief from your symptoms for good.
Drs. Howard M. Levin, Vincent M. Imbrogno, Ravinder Sabherwal and Emily Washek can determine the cause of your dry eyes and prescribe a treatment that helps reduce symptoms such as redness and sensitivity. Our Erie, PA, practice has several dry eye treatment options available, allowing our doctors to prescribe a solution that best fits your needs.
What Is Dry Eye?
Dry eye is a condition that is caused by insufficient tear production or poor tear quality. The exact cause of your dry eyes will be a very important factor in helping our doctors determine the best treatment.
Aqueous Tear-Deficient Dry Eye
If your eyes do not produce a sufficient amount of tears, this is known as aqueous tear-deficient dry eye.
Evaporative Dry Eye
While healthy tears contain a balanced amount of oil, water, and mucous, poor quality tears do not contain the correct proportions of these substances and evaporate too quickly from the surface of the eye.
Symptoms of Dry Eye
The most common symptoms of dry eye include:
- Redness
- Watering
- Itchiness
- Stinging or burning
- Sensitivity to brightness
- Feeling of a foreign body in your eye
- Blurry vision
Dry eye treatment can relieve your symptoms, allow you to wear contact lenses more comfortably, and improve your quality of life.
Risk Factors
Several factors can increase your risk of developing dry eye, including:
- Older age
- Certain medications
- Certain medical conditions
- Skin conditions such as rosacea
- Environmental factors including windy, smoky, or dusty conditions
- Extended use of your contact lenses
Dry eye can also be caused by certain habits and tasks such as driving for extended periods of time or prolonged use of electronic devices. Because you blink less when performing these activities, the eye sometimes cannot correctly distribute your tears.
The Treatment Process
Our doctors offer dry eye diagnosis and treatment, which is usually conservative and can help you gain immense relief.
Consultation
During your eye exam, we will ask you about your symptoms and how severe they are. We will then try to find the underlying cause of your dry eyes by performing a slit lamp exam or conducting a Schirmer's test, which tests your quantity of tear production. During this test, we will place a small test strip on the inside of your lower eyelid. Over the next five minutes, we will monitor how many tears you produce. If your dry eye is being caused by poor quality tears rather than low tear production, we may conduct additional testing.
Treatment Options
Depending on the cause of your dry eyes, we may prescribe a combination of treatments. These may include:
- Resting your eyes
- Wearing sunglasses more often
- Wetting drops
- Punctal plugs
- Warm compresses
- Eyelid cleansers
- Prescription eye drops
Get Relief Today
Dry eye treatment can relieve your symptoms, allow you to wear contact lenses more comfortably, and improve your quality of life. To speak to our team about your symptoms, call Contemporary Ophthalmology Of Erie at (814) 838-9555 or request a consultation online.
