so usually i like to talk about products that help people that help them prevent getting eye disease
that help them see their very best for today and for tomorrow but unfortunately there's a lot of
products out there on the internet that i see influencers promoting and there's very little
to no scientific evidence that supports their use and there's a chance some even may hurt people so
in this video we're going to talk about eye care products that you don't need let's take a look
hey welcome back this is Dr Allen here from the dr eye health show helping you learn all about
the eyes vision and finding the best vision products and today we're doing a little twist
on things we're going to look at the products that you don't need really shedding some light
on some products that i've seen out there and tried myself that yeah i just i want you guys to
avoid it don't fall victim to these like marketing schemes a big part of being an ethical healthcare
professional is that we have to promote what has scientific validity or real evidence behind
it so with all products and even treatments that are out there it's good to have at least
some level of question in your mind if something's really going to help you or is it just a bunch of
hokum so the first product we're going to talk about is that of pinhole glasses if you've never
seen pinhole glasses before they're supposed to be a type of sunglasses you put on and they have
these tiny holes in them that are supposed to improve your vision help you see better without
the needing of prescription glasses there's even outrageous claims that they somehow can reverse
your need for glasses which is again complete bs the whole concept behind pinhole glasses is true
that a pinhole a small tiny hole that you look through can improve your vision you can even test
this at home by making a little tiny hole with your finger and this helps reduce stray lights
that coming in from different directions and can improve your vision somewhat we even use this in
the eye clinic with what's called a pinhole occluder where we cover one eye and we hold
something like a pinhole over the other and that will again at least show us that somebody's vision
if they're having deficits are that that deficit is something that can be corrected refraction wise
with glasses rather than with a true eye disease something like a retinopathy or a severe cataract
which something like a pinhole occluder wouldn't fix i did pick up these pairs of pinhole glasses
off amazon for like 12 just as kind of a gag gift to kind of see what it was like
you can't see very much out of it your side vision is reduced and it really doesn't improve your
vision that much so again not worth the money i think the only time i would ever put these on
is if it was like an Armageddon situation where the end of the world was nigh and i
had no glasses of contact it maybe would get you through a pinch but uh again wouldn't recommend
it the second thing you do not need is visine or clear eyes really any eye drop that claims
it'll get the red out this is historically something that all eye doctors will tell you
is that those eye drops are not good for your eyes and they usually end up doing more problems than
solving it's not necessarily visine or clear eyes the brands that are the problem it's just
to get the red out drops that they do make and are famous for and that's because those eye drops have
an ingredient in them called tetrahydrosaline or naphazalene and these ingredients have been around
for a long time and they cause constriction of your blood vessels on the eye which
make your eyes appear more white the real problems with these ingredients is that they often cause
a rebound effect making your eyes more red which then you use the eye drops to solve that problem
and then it rebounds again and becomes a vicious cycle on top of that if you are having a medical
problem something that an eye doctor like myself wants to see on the eye blanching those blood
vessels may mask the actual problem and then you kind of throw off our whole process of figuring
out what the problem is usually if your eyes are red it's because they're irritated or there's a
problem such as an infection or something going on so although having red eyes may not look very good
it's an important sign for us to be able to see that and really help you on top of that
the preservatives in these eye drops are usually very harsh and have been found in some studies to
cause damage to the glands of the eyelids leading to severe forms of dry eye so yeah you gotta watch
out for that now since we're already talking about eye drops let's talk about number three which is
roto eye drops roto is a brand of eye drops that you can buy over the counter they're just
lubricating drops but they have menthol in them as an ingredient and this is something that uh
studies have shown that maybe not be a good idea primarily advertisements that i've seen for roto
drops are marketed toward people like video gamers and people who are up late at night staring at
their computer screen which makes sense because people who are staring at the computer screens
usually don't blink as much and therefore have more problems with dryness and the whole idea of
adding menthol to the eye drops is because this front surface of the cornea is more sensitive
to coolness such as wind blowing across the eye to make more tears except menthol which does have a
coolness effect it also causes desensitization at least one study that i personally read
did find that using menthol on the surface of rat corneas could cause not just desensitization but
pretty much permanent reduction in your own tears being developed so using eye drops like this may
in fact desensitize the cornea and make your dry eye even worse okay now number four is this thing
which is an eye massager i've in fact tried a couple of different brands of these and they're
fairly expensive they're like in the 120 us dollar range the whole point of these devices is that
they're supposed to heat up giving warmth to your eyelids to help with any sort of dry eyes and then
it has kind of a massaging function that massages your eyelids and helps squeegee out any of those
oils it's supposed to be relaxing although these electronic eyelid massagers are built very well i
just don't think they work the heating element doesn't get warm enough to really heat the oil
glands of your eyelids the heating element is too small not wide enough to be effectively touching
your eyelid and then the massaging motion of the actual massager that's built into it although it
does feel good on your temples if you've got like a headache and you're just stressed out
it does feel pretty good there but i'm afraid that it doesn't really push on the eye correctly
it may even push on the eye too much potentially increasing your risk for things like glaucoma
or maybe even keratoconus and that's a corneal disease you do not want to rub your eyes with
and honestly the funny part is that these even play a music tone to try and help you relax
no perhaps it could make it a little bit cooler if they put like bluetooth in there you can play
your own music but again nah there's way other better warm compresses and things you can find
on the market that there's way more published evidence for the treatment of dry eyes using
thermal pulsation techniques that are used in your doctor's office so yeah way better to go that
direction next up is that of eye color changing eye drops there's a lot of people out there who
seem to not want their eye color they want to be able to change it either through something like
a surgical means or an eye drop there are some procedures that i've heard of that can change your
eye color but it usually involves doing an implant or using a laser unfortunately all the cases i've
ever heard of usually result in severe forms of glaucoma where people can lose their vision and go
blind from so yeah not recommended and certainly not uh approved for here in the united states as
far as the color changing eye drops the ones that i've seen sold on like amazon and other places
i would not trust those there is an eye drop for glaucoma treatment that will prescribe to lower
people's eye pressure and as a side effect it can cause some issues with the color of the eye
namely for people with lighter colored eyes like blue or green they can make the eyes appear a
little bit more hazel and even potentially i guess getting them more brown but i've never
seen anybody's eye color change that dramatically but they say eye drops can have other side effects
like causing your eyelashes to grow longer in fact latisse the medication that will prescribe to get
people's lashes to grow longer is based off of that medication but for some people it can change
the fat deposition of around the eyes causing their eyes to give more of a sunken in appearance
giving them like dark circles and things like that but there is also the concern of you not knowing
what's really put into those eye drop ingredients like preservatives that can cause damage and
ocular surface disease so again don't waste your money on these things if you're really concerned
or want to change your eye color think about color changing contact lenses there are some contact
lenses on the market that do great for that and look good and are fairly safe for the eyes but
if you're going to go the route of color changing like halloween contacts watch out for those
ones because historically they cause terrible infections and can cause permanent complications
and vision loss from those things another item you do not want to waste your money on is that of eye
creams now they do have some eye creams out there that may be helpful temporarily at like relieving
under eye bags or dark circles i've done a few other videos talking about those and how to get
rid of them like actual real ways to get rid of them but the eye creams can help temporarily i
even tried one out recently at a trade show but unfortunately again it only only works for a few
minutes to an hour or so and it just doesn't cure the actual problem the real concerning issue is
that with a lot of eye creams that are out there as they have a lot of ingredients in them that can
potentially cause damage to the eyelids and or even hurt and cause problems like severe ocular
surface disease and dry eyes really if you're having bad puffy eyelids and inflammation you
should first see a local eye doctor to make sure it's not an infection or something else going on
and then of course making sure you're cleaning your eyelids cleaning your face very well and
then trying like cold compresses things like that to control that inflammation but again most of the
eye creams that are out there just not worth your money don't waste it next up is that of blue light
glasses particularly cheap blue light glasses most of the blue light glasses that you see that
are sold for like the 20 range or something like that they have almost zero technology in them or
any real way to prove that they're doing anything there is some truth to blue light affecting your
sleep cycle potentially affecting eye strain and maybe retinal damage there's different theories
on that but right now we're still waiting on more studies to be done to conclusively say if the blue
light's really helping you with your eye strain or affecting your retinal damage
there are some good quality blue light glasses out there that have science built into it that a lot
of research has been done to block out the type of light that's coming from digital screens but by
far the most of the blue light glasses companies that i've seen uh they seem like they pop up
overnight but they don't really know what they're doing and they don't really even report the right
amount of blue light that they should be blocking i do wear blue light glasses myself but i invest
in ones that are actually good so if you want to learn more about all the different blue light
glasses out there and knowing more of the science behind it i do have a video series going over blue
light glasses and all that and i'll put that in the video description below if you want to check
it out but yeah unfortunately if you spent like 20 dollars on a pair of blue light glasses on amazon
probably isn't doing anything next up are the as for seen on tv glasses i've seen a couple of
different ones of these there's either ones for reading up close or there's ones that are more
like driving sunglasses that are like help reduce eliminate all reflections and glare coming off of
oncoming headlights things like that none of these glasses really work they're really just a novelty
item the ones for reading up close are supposed to be able to dial them in there is a little
bit of use for that and i think if you're really struggling maybe but really just buying a couple
pairs of different cheating glasses of different powers that's gonna work even better for you just
to quickly switch in and off you're gonna save yourself a lot more money just going in that
direction otherwise the anti-glare night driving glasses i've done a video going more in depth on
true night driving glasses but uh the ones these as seen for seen on tv ones i've tried them don't
waste their money they don't work you'll get a lot more relief from struggling with driving by
getting a good pair of prescription driving glasses with a good quality anti-reflective
cleaning your windshield things like that again if you want to see my experience using driving
glasses and figuring out all that again i'll put that in the video description now how about
red light and green light glasses this is uh kind of a one of the weirder things on the market
but there are some scientific studies that have implicated having red light shine on the eyes
in improving retinal health specifically how red light can kind of re-energize mitochondria
a certain cell within your body which is the powerhouse of your body and making more atp and
creating more energy and the idea is that if you shine this red light onto the retina then you can
basically reactivate the retina and get it to be healthier and have more longevity now while there
are some complications that have come out that implicate this that there's not enough studies to
prove any of that on human eyes and it's certainly not at that point where the united states fda or
any professional organization have been able to conclusively say that yes this is something
that's helpful and that we would recommend as far as blue light green light there are
some studies that indicate that looking at these different colors lights and having different
lights shine into the eye may affect our mood maybe affect our sleep cycles things like that
but still there's there just needs to be a lot more research going into this before anybody
can really back it so again hold off don't waste your money uh it's something that you can laugh at
otherwise i hope you got something out of this video maybe you learned something new
whatever your favorite thing was drop it in the comment section below and if there's any products
out there uh that you think are either really helpful or maybe completely bogus again let us
know in the comments but hey thanks for watching if you enjoyed the video and got something out
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information about different eye diseases their treatments and finding the best vision products
to help you see your best thanks for watching keep an eye on it and we'll talk to you soon you