Dr. White Presents at Caribbean Eye! Part I

Dr. White was invited to present the SkyVision Centers advanced Dry Eye protocol at the Annual Caribbean Eye Meeting last weekend. The program directors were especially interested in how we use tear osmolarity in determining diagnosis and treatment. The title of Dr. White's talk was "Osmolarity 401: Advanced Use of TearLab Osmolarity."

"TearLab has a fantastic tool that deserves to be much more widely utilized," noted Dr. White. "For at least 2 years we have been pushing the envelope, trying to see just how much information we can glean from the results of this extremely accurate instrument. It turns out that for some patients the presence of a low reading is a very important result, one that allows us to choose a treatment that is much more targeted to that individual's needs."

TearLab's breakthrough several years ago was to show that elevated osmolartiy, saltiness, was present in Dry Eye, and that the higher the osmolarity the more severe the dryness. At SkyVision we have determined that patients with a pure dysfunctinal tear syndrome will have all of the symptoms of a dry eye, and yet they will have a "normal" osmolarity score.

Dr. White presented our findings. "A high osmolartiy pretty much always means that you have a dry eye of some sort. A low osmolarity might meant that you really are normal! However, when you have all of the symptoms for a dry eye, and our exam shows the clinical signs of a dry eye, a low osmolarity guides us to the proper treatment of your particular type of Ocular Surface Disease! A low osmolarity is the new "abnormal."

In Part II we'll share what Dr. White had to say about using TearLab to determine how to treat a Dry Eye.