More Dry Eyes in the House/NY Times Article

Dry-eye syndrome is growing, and doctors blame smartphones, office buildings.

Click on the link below to the interesting article from the New York Times.

Why Are We Having So Many With Dry Eye?

Dry Eye Disease Awareness Month

Learn more about Dry Eye

Skyvision Center is an accredited Tear Lab Dry Eye Center

   

In Partnership with the 

Sjögren's Syndrome Foundation 

  

TearLab®  is proud

to bring awareness to this often

undiagnosed disease.

Please visit 

www.tearlab.com

and

www.sjogrens.org

for more information.

For every LIKE in the month of July on allaboutdryeye's Facebook page, and Sjogren's Facebook Page, TearLab Corporation will donate $1 to the Sjogrens Syndrome Foundation.  Please participate and do your part to help raise awareness for this disease.

Know the Dry Eye Facts

You’ve been staring at your computer and sifting through paperwork for hours. Your eyes begin to feel gritty, sore and tired. You could be among the 30 million Americans that suffer from dry eye disease, and not even know it. Since dry eye symptoms can mimic many other syndromes, sufferers frequently go undiagnosed and often don’t realize what they are afflicted with. Additionally, many people confuse dry eye symptoms with seasonal allergies or the common cold. It is imperative to know the facts; and we have made it easy for you with our dry eye fact sheet.

So, why is being aware of dry eye disease important, you ask? Well, if dry eye is left untreated or undetected, it can be much more than just a bothersome and uncomfortable condition. Untreated, excessive dry eye disease can damage the eye’s delicate tissues and disrupt the cornea, which can ultimately lead to vision impairment or even loss. Permanent scarring on the ocular surface and frequent eye infections can also be a result of undetected dry eye disease. Do not take eye hydration for granted!

In every practice, there are hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of patients who suffer from some form of ocular dryness. In fact, dry eye disease is the number one reason for eye doctor visits. And while we can’t change the fact that we have dry eye disease, we can limit the environmental factors that aggravate symptoms. Being aware of potential dry eye triggers and becoming familiar with recognizing the symptoms can be exceedingly beneficial.

With so much to know, and so little time to read literature on the topic, how can one be more knowledgeable regarding the proper protocol to detect, ease and avoid dry eye symptoms? Further, who are the unlucky individuals more likely to be plagued with dry eye disease? Know the answers to these questions and the most common do’s and do not’s of dry eye disease to lessen your risk before the problem progresses. Proactively reduce your chances of developing or worsening dry eye symptoms by printing or sharing this child-friendly, educational dry eye fact sheet! Know the basics, your eyes will thank you!

Always see an Accredited Dry Eye doctor for a regular eye examination, or if you think you may have dry eye disease.

September 6, 2012 by All About Dry Eye 

Dr. White Presents at Caribbean Eye! Part II

We hear that Dr. White was his usual entertaining self during his presentation of "Osmolarity 401: Advanced Use of Tearlab Osmolarity" at the 2013 Caribbean Eye meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico! All of the staff at SkyVision Centers has seen the pictures of Linda Blair, both as the "Exorcist" and as the very beautiful woman she is today. While we are all really interested to know how the audience reacted to those pics, what we REALLY want to know is how did Dr. White ever do a complete talk in only 7 minutes?!

After introducing our SkyVision strategy for using the TearLab system for diagnosis Dr. White moved onto the topic of treatment. This is really what sets us apart when it comes to osmolarity. "What people describe as a normal test result we simply view as a 'low' reading on the osmolarity scale," said Dr. White. "Someone who has all of the symptoms that we associate with Dry Eye may or may not have a true dry eye problem in the face of a low osmolarity. If they have other signs of DES we might simply be dealing with the dysfunctional tear syndrome: plenty of tears that just don't work well enough."

The most important thing in the diagnosis and treatment of Ocular Surface Disease, the more general term for Dry Eye, is a patient's symptoms. We use symptoms to determine when to treat, and we then use a patient's symptoms to help us determine how the treatment is going. The osmolarity helps us to choose how we treat.

Dr. White: "If the osmolarity is high we will choose one of the more hypotonic tears like Thera Tears or Blink. These patients usually fall into the group that is best treated with Restasis. On the other hand, someone with Dry Eye symptoms who has a low osmolarity but has other signs of dryness will do better with a tear that is designed to stabilize the tear surface, like Systane Balance or Optive Advanced. These folks tend to do well with a medicine like Azasite."

So there you have it! We'll try to find those pictures of Linda Blair!

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.

How Do We Diagnose Dry Eye?

So you've come to Skyvision Centers with red, burning or tearing eyes. Your vision gets blurry when you look at a computer. You always feels like there's something in your eyes.   How do we know it's from Dry Eye? How do we make the diagnosis?

Well, the very first thing we do is LISTEN to you! We try very hard to hear what it is that's bothering you. After that there are several tests that the technicians and doctors do to evaluate your tears, like examining your tears themselves. Both the doctors and the technicians look at your tears. Do you have a normal amount present just on viewing? Are they clear? Is there any debris, stuff like mucous or clumps of white blood cells present?

Before we put anything into your eyes we will often use a special instrument called an osmometer to check your tear OSMOLARITY, how salty your tears are. This is a very new, fully FDA approved test to evaluate whether you have a normal amount of salt in your tears. Normal is below 300 and abnormal is above 308, with the 300-308 range being relatively non-diagnostic. This test is very helpful in determining whether or not you have the most common type of Dry Eye, especially when other signs are hard to see.

The doctor will then put a vegetable-base dye called FLUORESCEIN into your tears to evaluate their function. How long does it take before they "break up"? Tears should remain smooth over the front of the eye for at least 8-10 seconds. Does any part of the front of the eye become stained by the flourescein? Dye staining is a sign that your tears do not work well enough. Finally, tiny strips of filter paper may be placed just inside your eyelids for a test of your tear production called a SCHIRMER test. This helps us know the volume of tear production.

That's how we do it! Lots of work to make the diagnosis, but heck...you're worth it! Look for more information on how we TREAT Dry Eye.  

For even more information about Dry Eye,  visit our YouTube channel   Skyvisioncenters105   for many Dry Eye videos by our very own Dr. Darrell White at The Dr. Whiteboard.

High Tech Dry Eye Care

Dry Eye Syndrome is the cause of more visits to the eye doctor than anything except routine vision exams. People with dry eye may have symptoms like burning, redness and blurring, to feeling like there’s something in their eye. They can even have tearing caused by dryness! Dry Eye Syndrome is so common that it is the most frequently searched eye problem on the Internet—10 times more common than LASIK!

Tear Osmolarity is the measurement of the saltiness of your tears. This test is an important measurement of the health of your tears and your eye lubrication. Tears are a complex combination of salt water, mucin, and special oil called mebum. All three of these elements are mixed, kind of like Italian salad dressing, and they form the tears that coat the surface of our eyes every minute of every day.

The measurement of your tear osmolarity is a rather new test. It's fully FDA approved. When your tear saltiness is high this is an indication that your tears are not normal. At Skyvision Centers we use the most modern instrument available, made by the TearLab Corporation, to do your test.

Why is this an important measurement? The most common cause of Dry Eye is a problem in the production of the saltwater part of your tears. This will give you a HIGH Tear Osmolarity. You can learn more about Dry Eye and Tear Osmolarity at Skyvision Centers, Northeast Ohio’s leading Dry Eye Center.   

A New Era in Dry Eye Management - Article

A little more about tear osmolarity and the treatment of Dry Eye Syndrome.  The recent article below tells how the instrument used by SkyVision doctors is leading the pack to help give patients the best care for their symptoms.

http://tlc.tearlab.com/resources//articles/A_New_Era_in_Dry_Eye_Management_-_Jerry_Nolfi__OD.pdf

Newsflash: Tear Osmolarity Is Now Covered By Medicare

Skyvision Centers is the top referral center for the treatment of Dry Eye and Ocular Surface Disease in the Cleveland area. Dr. Darrell White has been a leader in the development of diagnostic and treatment protocols in these clinical areas for more than 10 years. Along with his partners Dr. Scott Schlegel and Dr. Gregory Kaye, Dr. White introduced Tear Osmolarity using the TearLab instrument to Northeast Ohio in March 2010.


"We are delighted to let people know that Tear Osmolarity, testing the level of 'saltiness' in our tears, is now covered by Medicare. In order to perform this test Skyvision obtained its certification as a CLIA laboratory. We are very proud to have achieved this, and we are very pleased that this news will make Tear Osmolarity available to more of our patients."

This test is important not only in making the diagnosis of Dry Eye, but in the hands of the Skyvision Centers doctors it is developing a very important role in helping to decide the proper treatment for any individual patient. Once again, Skyvision is on the cutting edge when it comes to making your eyes healthier!