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.   

Good News On Omega-3 Fatty Acid Supplements

Do you take an Omega-3 Fatty Acid supplement like fish oil or flaxseed oil? If not are you thinking about taking one? Our doctors at SkyVision Centers keep coming up with more and more reasons you should!

Omega-3 Fatty Acids are building blocks for the oil secretion from the Meibomian glands in your eyelids. This oil is what stabilizes the front of your tear film and keeps your tears from evaporating before your next blink. We've lost count on the number of articles in the eye literature that have shown this. Whether you have Dry Eye or not, taking a supplement will improve the quality of your tears in most cases.

The Nurses Health Study which has followed thousands of nurses for decades published a very telling study on Omega-3 Fatty Acid content in diets and vision loss from Macular Degeneration. In short, those nurses who had the highest weekly intake of Omega-3 Fatty Acid in the DHA and EPA forms (see below) had a 1/3 lower incidence of lost vision.

Data continues to accumulate on the benefits of taking an Omega-3 Fatty Acid supplement as a way to decrease your risk of heart disease. This is especially true in men who have other cardiac risk factors. Once again, Fish Oil high in DHA and EPA has an anti-inflammatory effect that seems to work against the type of inflammation that attacks the coronary arteries. This is the same anti-inflammatory effect in your muscles and joints that CrossFitters have found, which is why using Fish Oil is a very common standard in the CrossFit community of athletes.

So what kind of Omega-3 supplement should you take. Dr. White likes to tell his patients that women can take either Fish Oil or Flaxseed Oil, but that men probably should NOT take Flaxseed Oil because of a potential danger to the prostate gland. Flaxseed Oil comes in 1000mg capsules and the best results come from taking 2 or 3 each day.

Fish Oil in capsule form (de-odorized to prevent "fish burps"!) is a little more complex. There are all kinds of levels of quality. You should look for ultra-filtered (to remove mercury), and you want to have the Omega-3 in the DHA/EPA (triglyceride) form. Look on the ingredients and buy the supplement that has the highest percentage of Omega-3 in the DHA/EPA form. Our Doctor's Advantage Omega Shield supplement (that Dr. White takes) has ALL 1200mg in the DHA/EPA form. In general, 1200mg pills have a higher concentration than 1000mg pills, and once again you should try to take 2 or 3 each day if you can.

When Should I Use Teardrops?

There are many degrees of Dry Eye so there are many answers to this question! For some people it's perfectly OK to just use an artificial tear when there is a little bit of discomfort. Feel a little dry? A tiny bit of scratchiness? Go ahead and put a drop in. 

Other people have Dry Eye symptoms all the time. The doctors at Skyvision like to tell these folks that they should use their tears just like they were a prescription medicine. 2, 3, sometimes 4-6 times a day on a schedule is sometimes what it takes to be comfortable with your Dry Eye.

It turns out that it is usually easier to prevent the Dry Eye symptoms from starting than it is to stop them once they start! In other words, the time to take your eye drops is when you DON'T have any symptoms. If you wait until your eyes feel badly it's already too late. 

Think of an image of a well with a bucket that hangs down into the water. If the well slowly drains all day long pretty soon the rope won't be long enough to reach the water. In order for the bucket to get to the water you first have to FILL UP THE WELL! Same thing with dry eye; if you don't keep the well full all day you won't get the benefit of the tears until you fill the well (your eye) back up! 

Ask one of the SkyVision Centers docs (Dr. White, Dr. Schlegel, or Dr. Kaye) what kind of artificial tear is best for you, and how much to use them.  There are many types of over-the-counter eye drops available.  If you need something more than artificial tears, there are ways to determine what is the best solution and the SkyVision Docs will work with you until you are comforable once again.

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

Skyvision honored as an Accredited Dry Eye Center!

Skyvision is one of just a few eye practices in the U. S. who have

earned this honor!  





The TearLab corporation has awarded this honor to Skyvision as a premier

eye center focused on the treatment of Dry Eye Syndrome, a common

and often uncomfortable eye condition.

For more on Dry Eye and how it is diagnosed and treated by our very

skilled Skyvision Docs, watch for some more blogs in the near future!

Or visit the Skyvision YouTube channel SkyvisionCenters105 for the Dr. Whiteboard

video series by Dr. Darrell White on Dry Eye.

Treating Dry Eye: Punctal Plugs

There are many different types of Dry Eye Syndrome (DES). The most obvious, of course, is not enough tears! The most common type of DES is to have a condition where your eyes just do not produce enough of your own natural tears and your eye is therefore dry. Some people have medical conditions that cause this like Sjogren's Disease or Rheumatoid Arthritis. Others may take medicines like diuretics or antihistamines that reduce the volume of tears. Most people have it just because.

As we've said many times before, the mainstay of treatement is to supplement your own tears with a high quality artificial tear. We like Refresh, Optive, and Thera Tears for this type of DES. It's also possible to increase the "contact time" of both your natural tears and your tear drops by putting a plug in one of the tear drains in your eyelid.

Think of your eye as a sink with one faucet and two drains. If you plug one of the drains the water will still eventually drain out of the sink, but it will spend a longer amount of time in contact with the sink itself. This is exactly how a Punctal Plug works, but slowing down the OUTFLOW of your tears.

When you have a DES evaluation at Skyvision Centers we will determine what type of DES you have and help you to find the best solution for your symptoms.