having dry eyes can turn into a vicious cycle of trying different treatments only to find out they
only help a little bit or don't help at all soon you realize that you are spending a significant
amount of money sometimes monthly for the hope of any relief you can get from this dry eye disease
depending on the severity of your dry eyes this disease can send you on a wild goose
egg hunt to find the best treatment starting with eye drops and gels prescription eye drops
like xiidra and restasis as well as certain steroid eye drops to help with inflammation
warm compresses and eyelid hygiene products to try and keep your eyelids healthy and your oil
glands working properly moisture chamber goggles dry eye goggles to retain moisture when sleeping
omega-3 or fish oil supplements and a healthy diet certain contact lenses that can actually
help dry eye symptoms all leading to advanced in-office procedures like lipiflow ipl ilux the
list goes on and on sometimes costing a thousand dollars or more depending on the treatment
even with all this treatment available sometimes it doesn't help as much as you want it to all this
can lead to a large amount of frustration are you being taken advantage of are all these treatments
just designed to make money off of you is there actually a cure for dry eyes let's focus in
hey howdy this is Dr. Neal Guymon, Dr. EyeGuy, and i just wanted to do a more serious discussion
video about dry eyes and dry eye treatments mainly what to expect with dry eyes and we're going to
pretty much break down dry eyes down to its basics and discuss whether there's really a cure a cure
for dry eyes so let's get into it so first off just to do a more general review of what is dry
eyes dry eyes down to its basics is a disease that affects the tear film and the surface of the
eyes that kind of kicks it out of homeostasis kind of kicks it out of balance and it affects
how comfortable your eyes are and how clear your eyes are if i had to describe dry eyes in one
sentence this is probably the best sentence that i have found dry eye is a multifactorial disease
of the ocular surface characterized by a loss of homeostasis of the tear film and accompanied by
ocular symptoms now you'd think this would make dry eyes simple but it's actually complex there
are many different parts that affect the harmony of the eyes you have the muscles nerves glands
tear ducts connective tissue many more that affect or play a role in keeping your eyes moist now
let's strip down the cause of dry eyes down to the basics pretty much you have evaporation of tears
and inadequate tear production pretty much meaning your tears are evaporating too fast or you're not
creating enough tears likely and this is how most people are you're a mixture of those two you're
not creating enough tears and your tears are evaporating too fast just to name a few causes or
links to dry eyes age people that are over 55 tend to have more dry eyes gender unfortunately women
tend to have drier eyes cosmetic and skin care products can affect the oil glands and also
cause dry eyes incomplete blinking especially if you're using the computer a lot we tend to stare
and not blink and so you don't get that fresh coat of tears over the surface of your eyes
eyelid problems if your eyelid is drooping out or drooping in it's hard for the eyelids to spread a
smooth layer of fresh tears over your eyes recent procedures like lasik lasik can actually damage
the nerves of the eyes these nerves are what tells the brain that the eyes are dry if the brain's not
sending the signal then it's not going to send the signal to pump more tears out and so this is a big
problem for people that have lasik sometimes temporary but sometimes can have long lasting
effects of dry eyes medications can have dry eye side effects like blood pressure medications
antidepressants sleeping pills heartburn tablets drugs for acne birth control hormone replacement
allergy cold medications parkinson's disease medications all these can possibly affect dry eyes
health conditions specifically autoimmune like rheumatoid arthritis sjogren's disease scleroderma
lupus a lot of different diseases can also cause dry eyes indoor and outdoor environment if you
have a dry environment your eyeballs are exposed to the atmosphere or the air that you're in and if
it's a dry environment typically your eyes are going to be more dry daily activities are what
you're doing all day if you're on the computer all day long like i mentioned before you tend
to stare and you have incomplete blinks that dry your eyes out if you drive for work you tend to
stare in complete blinks if you're riding a bike or a motorcycle and the wind can dry your eyes out
so a lot of it depends on what you're doing during the day then of course lifestyle
in general are you getting enough sleep do you wear contact lenses contact lenses can cause
your ocular surface or cause your eyes to be more dry because dry eyes is a multifactorial disease
there are many different things that can cause it many different mixtures of causes many different
severities of dry eyes it can make it challenging to properly diagnose it can make it challenging to
properly treat the dry eyes i wanted to go over this analogy that may relate to having dry eyes
and that's being overweight now a lot of times when you slowly gain weight it can happen slowly
over the years maybe over the course of 10 years you might pack on 20 pounds and because of slowly
you don't really notice it but when you get to that point where you realize hey i have a gut
i need to lose some weight you'll start to go on a diet and you'll start to work out and maybe it
can be tricky maybe you'll go two weeks four weeks and find out you only lost a half a pound and so
it makes you wonder hey what you know am i eating too much am i not doing the right workouts what's
going on it can be very very frustrating because it's never as fast as you want it to go dry eyes
is very very similar it's a chronic progressive disease and it happens slowly throughout the years
until you kind of reach a point where you're feeling the symptoms a little bit more you're
noticing the symptoms a little bit more and so you want to do something about it so you might
start taking eye drops and maybe not helping a little bit so you'll do warm compresses and eyelid
massages and not really helping maybe it helps a little bit but it's not really getting rid of
the problem that's similar to being overweight you try and do things and maybe you help a little bit
but it's not really getting rid of the problem and that can be really challenging is something
that you need to be consistent about about your dry eye treatments fine tuning and tweaking your
dry eye routine learning what helps you the most same thing with losing weight you know what diet
works best for you what do you like to do to work out where do you lose the weight the best and it's
very very similar and what you're trying to do is you're trying to reverse or backpedal what's been
been gaining what you've been doing to yourself for the last few years maybe not on purpose
but you're trying to reverse years of a chronic progressive disease and what's tricky is that it
just won't happen overnight and similar to gaining weight sometimes that can have long lasting health
effects on your body same thing with dry eyes dry ice can be a progressive disease and cause
long-lasting effects for example your oil glands can atrophy they'll shrink down if they're not
working properly and usually you won't get those glands back even if you try your best it's hard to
return to that homeostasis and so that's something also to consider and keep in mind hey just really
quick as i'm editing this video i just want to mention that i know this analogy doesn't work for
everybody everybody has a different situation different type of dry eye but in general dry
eye disease is a chronic progressive disease so i just wanted to mention that it's kind of tricky
to fit a bunch of dry eye topics into a concise short video so that's why i recommend definitely
checking out my playlist about dry eyes also check the description for dry eye resources and
different video links down there and while you're down there make sure that you hit that like button
for me that will tell me and youtube that this type of video format is definitely worthwhile
doing so thanks okay let's let's get back into it another thing that i found tricky is
actually explain to other people that don't really necessarily have that bad of dry eyes of how bad
dry eyes can affect people's lives people that have moderate to too severe dry eyes really can
have a hard time just doing their normal daily activities working on the computer they want to
read a book if they want to go driving sometimes their vision can be too blurry pain is a big one
sometimes people have really bad eye pain from their eyes being so dry it's just a constant pain
that they deal with all day long and so dry eyes can actually be pretty debilitating depending on
how severe it is now i don't mean for this video to be a doom and gloom video hey there's no hope
for your dry eyes why are you even trying to treat your dry eyes no that is definitely not
what i'm saying is i'm just hoping that we can better understand dry eyes the basics of dry eyes
and that being said in the last 10 years even since i've been practicing there have been in
many many advancements to dry eye treatments and dry eye research and understanding core issues
of dry eyes i think we're actually entering and maybe in the golden age of dry eye treatments
and research there are many more doctors that are understanding dry eyes more we're trying to figure
out core issues and better treatments for patients and so you're starting to find more doctors
treating and understanding dry eyes better and so you are in a good age of dry eye treatments
now better than we have been in years past so bottom line is there a cure for dry eyes
no at least that's probably not the word to use cure we can definitely treat dry eyes we can
definitely repair some damage caused by dry eye disease and it's getting better and better every
day but don't look at it as looking for a cure for dry eyes but hopefully we can get as close to
homeostasis as we can i completely understand the frustration with patients because a lot of times
people are paying a lot of money to treat the dry eyes with eye drops and prescription eye
drops that can cost a lot of money and different procedures and dry eye routines that cost a lot
of money and sometimes only gives them a little bit of help or maybe sometimes no help at all
and that can also be frustrating for the doctors as well because they can invest
a lot of money into trying to provide certain treatments for patients only to find that maybe
it will only help some patients just a little bit but some patients it does help a lot and so
that's why a lot of doctors are at least trying their best to help those patients with dry eyes
if there's one recommendation that i can give if you're having any symptoms of dry eyes
that would be to seek out eye doctors that are investing in dry eye treatments or investing in
treating dry eyes in their patients because that will definitely help you preserve your eyes down
the road and there are many doctors and many more doctors every day that are learning more
about dry eyes that are trying to figure out the best treatments for their patients and trying to
help and invest time and their patience and so i do think that you can find dry eye treatment that
will help you the best again i'm Dr. Neal Guymon, Dr. EyeGuy focusing on you and your eyes stay
focused and check out my other videos right there and i'll see you in the next video