Dry Eye Management in New Jersey
Contact lens wearers frequently develop dry eyes over a period of time. Many contact lens patients will also have a simultaneous decrease in their corneal sensitivity due to the contact lens usage. The result is a degradation of their ability to wear contacts safely.
Early symptoms may be fluctuating vision when wearing lens and a need to blink frequently to clear the vision.
Intermediate symptoms are irritated eyes; redness, burning, and having the feeling that the contact lenses stick to your eye when you try to remove them. Later symptoms are a decrease in vision.
During each of these phases, critical cells necessary for your eye health may be impaired or damaged permanently.
We highly recommend that patients do not sleep in contact lenses, even though it is FDA approved to do so. We also strongly recommend that you give your eyes at least 2 days a week out of contact lenses. It is important to use frequent wetting drops with your contacts. Disposable contact lenses are probably safer too.
Unfortunately, we have patients that can not have laser vision correction due to irreparable surface damage to their eyes from contact lenses. To make maters worse they can no longer wear their lens’s either.
When it comes to laser vision correction, it is important to keep dry eye conditions in mind. In Lasik an incision is made through the corneal nerves to create the corneal flap. In surface laser vision correction (PRK) no incision is preformed. Since Lasik cuts the corneal nerves, Lasik causes significantly more dry eyes than surface laser vision correction.
This is one of many reasons why we prefer surface laser vision correction over Lasik.
Restasis is an excellent prescription medication to help reduce dry eyes. We frequently use it as one of our dry eye treatments prior to laser vision correction.
For more information about Restasis, visit their website at: www.restasis.com |
