Have you heard about using scleral contact lenses when you have dry eye disease? They're a great idea for dry eye sufferers. Let's review three reasons why scleral lenses work well for patients who have dry eye disease.

#1) The Shape of a Scleral Lens

Scleral lenses are a little larger than a soft contact lens. The lens goes over your eye from the white part of the eye, sclera, to the other side just like a soft contact lens would. But, the difference with a scleral contact lens is its rigid material. 

The rigid material gives the lens a fish bowl shape that vaults over the front of your eye. You fill the lens with sterile saline solution. Then when you put it on your eye, the saline bathes your eye in moisture all day long.

The lenses work really well to keep your eyes lubricated...

Happy Holidays!  I hope this is a great time of year for you.  I understand how hectic gift giving and shopping can be.  I want to make it easier for you to choose gifts that you know your friends will love, and they're healthy for their eyes.

This holiday season, give gifts that support good vision.  These gifts are great to give tp your mother, your sister, your best friend that would be super special, awesome, and help their dry eyes.

I want everyone with dry eyes to receive the gift of  comfortable eyes and good vision. Dry eyes can be soothed and pampered just like sore muscles. I've got some really great gifts that'll help you to pamper not only your loved one, but also your peepers.

#1) Umay Rest

 The Umay REST device is portable,...

This is week three of the 3 myths of dry eye disease. If you've missed the other 2 myths, be sure to check out the other blogs: Myth 1 and Myth 2. 

Myth#3: There's nothing I can do to treat my dry eye disease.

If you've been Keeping up with the other myths, then you already know that this myth is wrong. There's so many things you can do to treat dry eyes, and some of them are very new. If you've been following me for a while, then you know that I always talk about the four parts to treat dry eye, which is E Y E S.  The EYES method gives four pillars of dry eye disease treatment.

Pillar #1) EYES

Step #1 is to treat your eyes. I like to talk about 4-simple steps to treat your dry eyes:

1. Hydrate with a Preservative-free Artificial tear - get the guide...

We are talking about three myths about dry eye disease. This blog is dedicated to Myth #2: "All dry eye drops are the same." New patients come in to see me all the time and say, "I've tried everything out there." This basically means that they went to the drugstore, and they picked up Visine and one other generic artificial tear. They tell me they tried them both. Their eyes felt great for about five minutes, but returned to the same level of dryness right away.

Even when talking about products that you can buy at the drugstore, not all dry eye drops are the same. There are 3 types of over-the-counter (OTC) products.

 #1) Artificial Tears

In fact, even the ones that you get over the counter are different. You can go to the drugstore and buy artificial tears. If they come in a...

Today, I'm going to talk to you about the first of three myths about dry eye disease. Stay tuned over the coming weeks for the other two myths.

Myth #1:

Dry Eye Disease symptoms will just go away on their own.

Truth:

Dry eye is a disease. It's called dry eye disease (DED).  And, it's chronic and progressive just like other disease that you might have, like diabetes or high blood pressure.

DED is chronic. You will need to treat it for a lifetime. It doesn't just go away on its own. So it needs to be treated long term. It's best to make simple shifts to your lifestyle to treat it. If you make your treatment regimen a part of your daily care routine (like you do for brushing your teeth) it is easy to do it over your lifetime. 

Check out the 4-simple steps of daily dry eye care...

Let's talk about treating your dry eyes when you hate taking eye drops. I have lots of patients in my office that just don't like taking drops. Or, perhaps it's hard for them to use drops because they have arthritis and can't squeeze the bottles, or their handshake too much.  It turns out there are several alternatives to your dry eye treatment that don't require putting drops in your eyes. 

If you have dry eyes, I always advocate taking 4-simple steps every day to treat your dry eyes. These steps are: hydrate, harmonize, heat, and heal.

1. Hydrate: Using something to help produce more tears in your eyes to lubricate them.
2. Harmonize: Removing bacteria and biofilm from your lids and lashes.
3. Heat: Using a warm compress to heat up the meibomian gland that live in the...

Let's talk about fall. When I think about fall, I think about getting ready for back to school.  For me, as an eye doctor, I think about your back to school eye exam.  This time of year, all the moms bring their kiddos to the eye doctor, in August and September, and get them ready for the school year.  They update their glasses and make sure they have a good pair for school and maybe an extra pair for home.

In general, fall is a time to get back into structure from the easy days of summer. It's a good time to dust off your old routines or pick up some new ones. Get back into the swing of things and take care of what needs to get done.

I want to encourage you, even if you aren't going back to school,  to schedule an eye exam. It's a great time of...

It's almost Labor Day weekend, and many of you may be preparing for travel.  I have covered how to travel with dry eyes on a couple of blogs, but I wanted to give an updated version here.  Next week, I am traveling abroad, so I wanted to include a couple of tips for longer airplane travel and a warm compress mask that didn't require a microwave or an electric plugin.

It is very important not to skip out on your eye care routine even when you're out of town.  The results of missing a few nights of care can be disastrous.  I've been there.

I previously wrote a blog about traveling with dry eyes.  You can check out that blog here. It goes over specifically all the things you need to pack in your carry-on versus your checked bag.  And, if you'd like...