so a lot of you've been asking me in the comment section about using atropine eye drops as a form
of eye floaters treatment and we've talked a lot on this channel about eye floaters because
it's a very difficult thing to deal with you're kind of annoying to see all the time so in this
video i'm going to break down how atropine eye drops work and how they can be used to help
eye floater symptoms then we'll go over some of the complications and potential side effects of
this medication and then i'll share some tips on how you can get this yourself so you can try
it out and see if it really is going to help you because getting this medication turns out to be a
little bit easier said than done that's today's video let's take a look hey welcome back this
is Dr. Allen here from the Dr Eye Health show and on this channel we do a lot of education
around eye diseases their treatments as well as helping people find the best vision products so
that you can keep seeing your very best if that's something that interests you then consider hitting
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now again today we are talking all about atropine eye drops and specifically how atropine eye drops
can be used as a form of eye floater's treatment now to be specific and very clear they're not
really an eye floater's treatment they're not a cure for eye floaters but they can be a way to
reduce eye floater symptoms and i say that because it's not really affecting eye floaters inside the
eye instead they're changing really how you can see those annoying drifting spots side to side
all day long and i can think of at least three reasons why eye doctors usually don't prescribe
this or why i don't think it's quite as popular yet but we'll get to that toward the end of the
video but in general atropine eye drops work by affecting your parasympathetic nervous system
and this causes your pupils to dilate really big and this is important in the eye clinic because we
can utilize these drops to really open up the eye and allow your eye doctor to look inside
detect different diseases that could could be going on and to even help relax the eye muscle
inside the eye called the ciliary body so that we can get a more accurate prescription
especially when considering doing eye surgeries or anything like that but usually eye doctors don't
use atropine in the eye clinics very often anymore because one percent atropine is incredibly strong
and if your eye doctor did put that in your eye they probably didn't like you because that
makes your people dilated for like an entire week usually in the clinic now we use derivative forms
of these eye drops called tropicamide or another one called cyclopentolate because they only work
for a few short hours at a time and they usually achieve enough of a desired clinical effect to
get our job done however atropine eye drops are still prescribed as an alternative to patching
therapy for kids with amblyopia or lazy eye it's uh still gets a good clinical effect it's just an
alternative for kids who just don't want to keep wearing a patch all the time also there's a lot of
cool research in using diluted atropine for myopia management or myopia control which is a way to
help slow down the advancement of nearsightedness myopia and young children but that's a whole
other complicated topic and uh i do plan to have a whole video series on that so again if you're not
subscribed to the channel you don't want to miss that make sure you are subscribed again so you'll
be alerted when that comes out now the whole idea of using atropine eye drops to relieve these
eye floater symptoms is that by giving a really diluted form of atropine you can get the pupil of
the eye to dilate just a little bit just enough to help relieve symptoms without causing nasty side
effects the whole idea of how this is supposed to work is that you have these eye floaters which are
suspended in the vitreous humor inside the back of the eye and then all the light which you are
seeing around you day to day that's casting that image onto the retina but the floaters get in the
way and so they cast a shadow onto the retina and that's why you're seeing those squiggly lines move
back and forth i know it's funny to hear how some people say it looks like either small worms or it
looks like little bacteria or parasites swimming around i always think that's great to hear mainly
because i myself have had those same thoughts especially as a young kid i was like what are
these things i'm seeing around here i even thought sometimes it was just my contact lens being dirty
and things like that but the idea of using the atropine especially at a low concentration
it would allow your pupil to dilate just enough so that you let in a little bit more light which
will disperse the shadow and making it not so concentrated into one spot so you don't see the
floaters as easily and at least one published report that i read from the European society of
cataracts and refractive surgery found that in i think 38 different eyes that they studied about 70
of the people who used a 0.01 atropine eye drop had a significant improvement of their floaters
symptoms and then another 20 percent had just mild reduction in their symptoms and only about 10
of these individuals although it was a smaller study said they didn't really notice any benefit
from it now of course using any medication there are potential side effects especially
with the stronger one percent atropine dosing in those cases uh doctors always have to worry about
increased heart rate or what's called tachycardia we have to worry about urinary and constipation
issues as well as flushing of the skin and altered mental status interestingly enough but usually
with these smaller .01 percent atropine so a really small percentage there's really no reported
complications other than occasional allergies to the surface of the eye it is also possible at a
really concentration that atropine eye drops could reduce your accommodative ability that's again
your ability to focus on your objects so if you're somebody who has either a reduced accommodative
amplitude to begin with or if you're somebody who's approaching like 35 to 45 you may start to
have more difficulties focusing on your focusing on your objects like your phone may have to reach
for reading glasses earlier things like that but still all very valid things to be concerned
about and something that doctors have to weigh and consider when prescribing these medications
now if you're wondering if using atropine eye drops is going to work for you and your floater
symptoms it's of course is something that you need to talk with your eye doctor about but there
still may be some challenges in you getting this eye drop in order to even give it a try namely
because most eye doctors aren't really utilizing this this is again something i've seen more
anecdotally either across the internet or hearing some other doctors kind of trying it out for some
patients who are very symptomatic and the reasons why i don't think this is very popular is one it's
not something generally discussed in the training when you're becoming an eye doctor whether you're
an optometrist or an ophthalmologist it's just something that doesn't really come up it's not
widely studied or widely published but hopefully because there are so many people with floaters and
they're just frustrating people and people are looking for an alternative treatment outside of
surgery if you're not a good candidate for surgery or something like that this this may be coming a
better option i think the other two reasons why it can be challenging to get this is because some
doctors are either because they're just not super familiar with it they may not feel comfortable
giving it a try or it mainly because point zero one percent atropine is difficult to get
one percent atropine is usually pretty easily attained through any general pharmacy
but getting a point zero one percent a highly diluted formulation needs to be acquired to what's
called a compounding pharmacy and unfortunately compounding pharmacies are just something that's
not readily available in every community so in order for an eye doctor like myself to prescribe
a low dose atropine you have to find one of these special pharmacies begin a conversation
with them make sure that that pharmacy is either available there for the patient to go pick it up
or that that pharmacy can mail it directly to the patient it's usually a lot easier said than done
and thankfully maybe something that is becoming more popular going forward in the future and i can
speak directly from the experience at our clinic where we do use compounding pharmacies to help get
low-dose Atropine/ for myopia management or myopia control for children so i think if you
are trying to find a doctor in your area that may be able to prescribe lotus atropine to try it out
for you and if this is going to help for you and your floaters you can certainly call your
clinic ahead of time and ask if it's something they do if they work with compounding pharmacies
but chances are if your clinic does myopia control or myopia management for young kids they likely
will have access to a compounding pharmacy to get low-dose atropine but again i can't speak for all
eye doctors out there not every eye doctor may feel comfortable in prescribing low-dose atropine
for you especially if they haven't heard of kind of these studies or anything like that
the one published study i have read i'll again put links to that in the description below and of
course if you end up finding a doctor in your area who hasn't heard of this please feel free to share
this video with them and their clinic my only hope is that this will at least open up a discussion
and kind of bring people's awareness that there is this kind of ongoing alternative treatment or
option for people who are struggling and suffering from these floaters now of course if you haven't
seen my other videos on floaters exactly what they are posterior vitreous detachment
kind of the emergencies if you're having eye floaters and flashes if you haven't seen that
or talk to your eye doctor about your floaters specifically to make sure that the eye is healthy
and okay and that you don't have a retinal tear or detachment going on i definitely encourage
you check out those videos i'll put them in a full video description a full playlist down in
the video description but definitely again speak with your eye doctor because they're the one who
knows your eyes and your eye health and they're gonna help you out the most but let me know in
the comments section if you have used atropine eye drops at all for any reason but specifically for
floaters i think it'd be great to hear some feedback of people who've had good benefits
from it maybe if you had it in no real chat and changes to your floater symptoms again let us know
in those comments because i think that's a great way for people just to kind of see what's going
on and if they're really going to help you out otherwise again if you found this video helpful
you know the drill hit that like button for me share it with your friends and family and when you
think it's going to help make sure you subscribe to the channel otherwise again this is dr Allen
keep an eye on it and we'll talk to you soon