do you suffer from that chronic dry eye and are constantly looking for solutions of how to get
rid of your dry eyes or treat your dry eyes i'm gonna go over my top four advanced home
treatments you need to be doing right now to control your dry eyes let's focus in
hey howdy everybody i'm dr neal guymon dr eyeguy with the show that helps keep your eyes healthy
and your vision clear i do a lot of how-to videos product reviews and educational videos just like
this one so make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss any of my future videos also check
below for any additional links from this video otherwise let's focus on those dry eyes now the
topic of dry eyes can be huge and overwhelming in fact i tell a lot of my patients that sometimes
dry eye conditions are more complicated than glaucoma or macular degeneration there are so many
different causes and a ton of different dry eye treatments out there now what's tricky about these
dry eye treatments is that it may help some people and at the same time not help other people and in
fact to be honest a lot of the dry eye treatments that are out there just don't help the patients
like they need to in fact you'll find patients that will be going to one doctor hoping for the
best hoping that they have some solution for their dry eyes they won't find that the treatment has
helped them so they'll go to a different doctor hoping for the best hoping that they can find some
other treatment and sometimes they'll go to many different doctors just hoping to find something
that's going to work or help them with their dry eyes now if i was to talk about the complete list
of causes and treatments of dry eyes this video would be 10 hours long probably longer so i've
boiled it down to my top four treatments that you need to be doing at home that can help most
people with dry eyes now a lot of these treatments you've probably heard of i'm going to give you my
top recommendations for each category number one is to make sure that you're taking a high quality
omega-3 supplement nutritional supplementation is foundational to treating your dry eye there's a
lot of talk about the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio you want to get as close to a one-to-one ratio
as you can here's the challenge though the north american diet has you on a 1 to 25 ratio omega 3
to omega 6. that puts your omega levels completely off balance the more off balance that is the more
inflammation your body may be prone to if you can decrease your omega-6s by cutting out processed
foods and trans fats that's going to help you in the long run now omega-3 supplementation
is key and you got to make sure that you're getting the right omega-3 supplementation
now you're going to go to the shelf and look at omega-3s at the grocery store there's going to be
almost a whole aisle of omega-3s and you're going to wonder what in the world should i get which one
is the best which one's going to work am i going to get fish burps with this one i understand
let me give you my best recommendation of what the best omega-3 is for your dry eyes and that is
the omega-3s by prn they have a specific formula for dry eyes now the keys to omega-3 supplements
is you want to make sure that you're taking the triglyceride form of omega-3s there's triglyceride
form and then there's ethyl ester or an alcohol form that our body doesn't absorb very well now
the triglyceride form is actually a natural fat and our bodies love fat and so they're going to
absorb this a lot better and you're going to get the best bang for your buck with taking this type
of omega-3s another reason why i like the omega-3s by prn is they have a excellent epa to dha ratio a
three to one ratio of the type omega-3s that's in here that ratio has been proven to help your dry
eyes the best you want to shoot for about 2.5 grams per day of omega-3 supplementation that's
about three of these pills a day now one thing i can help you is if you don't know if you're
low on omega-3s there is a at-home test that you can take it's called the omega quant test
look down below for the link that link will bring you to the omega quant homepage where you can
actually order a kit and actually do the test at home and send it in they'll tell you exactly
where your omega-3s are at what levels you're at in your blood and that way you can track best
if the prn or the omega-3 supplementations are actually helping raising your omega-3s in your
blood so i definitely recommend doing that i've hooked you up with a link down below so
you can actually get that and do it at home my number two recommendation is to make sure that
your eyelids are clean and i want you to be using a hypochlorous acid solution now staph
bacteria overpopulation is one of the most massively underestimated drivers
of dry eye and ocular surface disease these over populated bacteria on your eyelids and eyelashes
will produce inflammatory toxins which will inflame your eyelids even more inflame your oil
glands this will provide the perfect environment for more bacteria more staph bacteria to produce
to reproduce and overpopulate and cause more inflammation now it might sound scary when i say
the word acid but hypochlorous acid solution is actually very safe for the eyelashes and eyelids
it's non-toxic non-irritating and does an excellent job at controlling that bacterial
overgrowth on your eyelashes and eyelids the hyperchlorous solution will reduce the bacteria
overpopulation on your eyelids which will reduce inflammation which will reduce inflammation of the
oil glands will help the homeostasis of your eyes to improve and also improve your dry eyes this is
something that you need to be doing at home and have a good habit because this will help
control your dry eyes now i've provided a link down below for ocusoft's version of hyperchloros
acid there's a lot of different solutions and products out there that are really good for your
eyelids really safe non-toxic definitely check them out i'll provide links down below number
three is heat masks and eyelid massage now heat masks and warm compresses are there to provide
dry eye relief in my opinion the heat mask and the warm compresses can't get hot enough to actually
treat the core issue actually treat the meibomian gland dysfunction for the dry eyes but they can't
take the edge off they can help a little bit they can take relief off the dry ice so it's definitely
something that i recommend you doing on a routine basis now the warm compresses and heat mass
are targeting the oil glands that are in your eyelids that run vertical on the bottom and
the top eyelids now these oil glands are actually closer to the surface on the inside of the eyelids
rather than the outside and that's why i say warm compresses and heat packs can't really treat the
core issue because they don't provide enough heat to the edge or the surface on the inside
of the eyelids they're providing heat on the outside it can take the edge off and it can help
control the dry eyes that's why i still definitely recommend it now one really advanced heat mask is
from a company called tear restore and they have little pouches that you'll put on inside the mask
the this gel pouch will actually heat up and retain its heat so it actually provides
targeted heat to the eyelids another advanced heat mask are electric heat mask they actually plug in
and it has a little dial or control where you can actually control the heat temperature so
it stays on your heat mask for the whole time that you're applying the treatment now i just
want you to remember every time that you do a warm compress right afterwards you're going to want to
do an eyelid massage where you can pretty much think about eyelid massages as milking your oil
glands or pushing the oil right out of your oil glands from your eyelids now this will clean out
the old oil that's in those oil glands as well as providing a mechanical pressure to help keep the
oil glands functioning and and working correctly now i'll have videos coming out how to properly do
heat masks and eyelid massages so make sure that you're subscribed for those future videos but i'll
also provide the links down below for a tear restore and these electric heat masks so you
can check those out because this is definitely the advanced way to do it now number four and
you're probably not going to think that this is an advanced technique or treatment for home
dry eye treatments but it is and that is artificial tears now i know a lot of you are
probably rolling your eyes but hear me out on this fourth one it seems like there's a new eye drop
coming out every couple of months now most of the eye drops that are coming out are helping with the
oil layer of the tears or they become lipid-based artificial tears now i want you to remember that
because the lipid-based artificial tears will target the water and the oil portion of your tears
and that's important things that we just discussed in this video are helping you with that oil layer
or those oil glands number one omega-3 is to help provide healthy oil to those oil glands number
two hypochlorous acid to help clean the eyelids and keep your oil glands from getting inflamed
number three is the heat masks and eyelid massages to make sure that those oil glands are working
well now if you have meibomian gland dysfunction or you don't have healthy oil on the tear layers
then you need to supplement them with artificial tears lipid based artificial tears so when you're
looking for artificial tears you want to look for anything that says the word lipid-based or
omega-3s or meibomian gland dysfunction that means that they're trying to target that oil
layer of the tears now if you want to go next level you want to try and get preservative-free
artificial tears that are lipid based the preservative free will make sure that the
preservatives aren't bugging or irritating your eyes so it's that much better two of them that
i recommend one is retain mgd also the refresh mega three these are both over the counter both
preservative free and i've had a lot of patients that have really liked using these so number four
more advanced artificial tear use is preservative free lipid based artificial tears now because it's
preservative free you can usually use them more often drops that have preservatives in them you
want to try and limit to four times a day or less that's why i go with preservative free you can use
these more often start with taking drops at least in the morning waking up providing the surface of
your eyes with fresh lipid-based artificial tears and that will get you going and help control your
dry eyes throughout the day now one quick note on artificial tears is a lot of people say i take
drops all the time i don't notice any difference the reason why i'm saying that you should still be
taking artificial tears is because it is coating the surface of your eye trying to keep the surface
of your eye from getting to that dry patch dry oasis type of feeling so even though it might not
feel like it's relieving your dry eye keep doing it because that routine that habit will help
keep your eyes from getting into a worse state especially if you're staring at screens all day
long you're blinking less frequently make sure you're using your artificial tears to help your
eyes out again i've hooked you up with links down below for all these different products
that i showed you if you have any questions make sure you leave it in the comments below i'm here
to help and make sure you subscribe for my future videos i'll have a lot of different dry eye videos
coming out in the future more specific to dry eye dry eye education and i just want to make
sure i'm answering all the questions that you have hey and thanks for watching everybody this is dr
neal guymon dr eyeguy looking out for you in your eyes stay focused and i'll see you in the next
video