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  

of it hit that like button for us and subscribe to  the channel if you'd like to continue hearing more  

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