Dry Eye Spa

What is Dry Eye Syndrome?

Dry Eye Syndrome or Ocular Surface Disease is when surface of your eyes don't maintain the right balance of water, mucous and oil in your tear film, causing symptoms like burning, itching, watery discharge, redness, general discomfort and fluctuating vision. In essence, dry eye occurs when a person doesn't have enough quality tears to lubricate and nourish the front surface of the eyes. Dry eye is a complex disease and requires expertise and a thorough evaluation of your ocular surface and tears to help attain the correct diagnosis and treatment plan. Studies have shown that over the counter tears only help temporarily and are not a long term solution to treating dry eyes.

BlephEx

This treatment helps to remove inflammatory material on the eyelids and unblock oil glands. This painless treatment is done in-office and takes only 10 minutes. We have provided residents of Sugar Land, Katy, Houston and other areas with amazing relief with this treatment since 2013!​​​​​​​

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Zest

ZEST (Zocular Eyelid System Treatment) is an in-office lid cleaning and debridement system using a natural okra-based gel. It is an effective treatment for killing demodex mites, removing dirt and debris and relieving associated inflammation.

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ThermaeyePlus® IPL

This treats dry eyes by utilizing pulses of light that liquefies and releases hardened oils that have clogged meibomian glands in the eyelids. It reduces eyelid redness and stimulates healthy gland function. This treatment has long-term success in treating severe dry eye and the causes.

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Mibo® Thermoflo

This treats dry eyes by massaging the margins of the eyelids. It uses controlled heat to unclog the meibomian glands to restore a healthier, more balanced tear film.

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• Contact Lenses – either a soft lens used as a bandage lens to protect your eyes from dehydration or a custom scleral contact lens to help provide moisture and hydration to your eyes while providing excellent vision.
• Antibiotics – specific antibiotics can reduce inflammation of the glands in your eyelids, allowing the lipid or 'oily' part of your tears to flow more freely.
• Anti-inflammatory drugs – dry eye syndrome is also known as ocular surface disease because the surface of the eye can be inflamed from chronic dry eyes. In these situations, reducing surface inflammation in the short term with steroid eye drops or long term with prescription strenght drops such as Xiidra, Restasis or Cequa may be necessary.
• Punctal Plugs – sometimes when there isn't enough total tear volume in the eyes, our doctors will insert dissolvable punctal plugs into a specific area in your eyelids (tear ducts) to prevent the tears that are there from draining from the eyes too fast.

• Autologous blood serum drops – For serious dry eyes that do not respond to other treatments, these eye drops are made with a sample of your blood. It’s processed to remove the red blood cells and then mixed with a salt solution.
• Amniotic Membrane Lenses – when there is excessive damage from chronic inflammation on the surface of your eyes, we may insert a special biological membrane contact lens for 3-5 days to help heal the damaged surface. This biological contact lens is made from human donation amniotic tissue and has extremely potent regeneration properties. Dr. Somji and Dr. Sana have provided many patients with relief by utilizing these special biological treatment lenses.

• Warm Compresses and Eyelid Scrubs – usually prescribed as a supplement to other dry eye treatments. Warm compresses can help unblock the glands that are responsible for produce the oily part of your tears.

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Preventive Self-Care

Before we delve into more serious dry eye treatment options, here are a few simple self-care options that can help manage minor symptoms associated with dry eye:

• Blink regularly when reading on a digital device or computer screen for a long time.
• Make sure there’s adequate humidity in the air at work and at home.
• Wear sunglasses outside to reduce sun and wind exposure. Wraparound glasses are the best.
• Take supplements with Omega 3's and essential fatty acids as these may decrease dry eye symptoms.
• Drink adequate amounts of water daily to stay hydrated.
• Find out if any of your prescriptions medications have dry eye as a side effect and if so, see if you can take an alternative. Common examples include over the counter anti-histamines.

Artificial Tears

Sometimes dry eye is induced by the things we do (such as starting at a digital device without blinking frequently) vs a true medical reason for dry eye sydrome. In these mild cases of dry eyes, a short term option are over-the-counter eye drops. Here are a few tips for selecting the right one:

• Low viscosity – These artificial tears are watery. They often provide quick relief with little or no blurring of your vision, but their effect can be brief.
• High viscosity – These are more gel-like and provide longer-lasting lubrication. However, these drops can cause significant blurring of your vision for several minutes. For this reason, high-viscosity artificial tears are recommended at bedtime.

Nutrition 

Omega Benefits

Our Practice Recommends De3 by PRN for occasional eye dryness, to provide the body with the essential nutrients it needs to produce a soothing, healthy tear film.

Studies show that long-term use of 2240MG of EPA/DHA in the re-esterified Triglyceride form (RTG):

• Significantly improves occasional dry eye discomforts such as grittiness, dryness, and burning2
• Improves tear film quality, contributing to overall eye comfort and stable vision2
• Ensures tears are healthy as part of creating a healthy surface for surgery
• Provides critical nutrition to produce healthy, soothing tears
• Can produce optimal levels of omega-3s in 90 days