The Latest Dry Eye Treatment

Today we are discussing dry eye syndrome, its causes, diagnostic tests, and treatment options. Dry eye syndrome is characterized by symptoms such as stinging, burning, redness, and sandiness in the eyes. !t’s a complex condition with various symptoms and causes. Dr. Sam shares valuable information and treatment options beyond traditional approaches. Enjoy the show!

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

dry eye syndrome, eyes, glands, dry, eyelids, eyedrops, tears, inflammation, screens, gland dysfunction, test, oily, doctor, vision, prescription, produce, symptom, find, stress, osmolarity

Hey everybody, its Dr. Sam and I’d like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast. So before we get to today’s show, I’m going to give you some ways to contact me, you can send me your questions at Hello@drsamberne.com. Or you can text them to me at 1-844-932-1291.

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Hey, everybody, its Dr. Sam and I’m on my morning walk I thought I would check in with you about my podcast today. So I want to talk about dry eye syndrome, my latest information on dry eye. So did you know that over 16 million people in the United States suffer dry I actually think that number is higher.

And today I want to talk about some of the causes of dry eye and what can you do about it besides just the regular pharmaceutical or surgical approach. So let’s begin by talking about what is dry eye. It is a condition where you experience things like stinging, burning, redness, sand in your eyes, you can wake up and it’s hard for you to open your eyes. So there’s a lot of variations to the symptoms of dry. One of the things I’ve learned by treating a lot of people with dry eye, it is definitely a puzzle. And everybody needs to be treated individually. So we can start with the meibomian glands. Those are the glands that are along the eyelids, and they’re called the oily glands. When you have dry eye syndrome, you’re probably not producing enough of the oil in the glands. And this is why the tears evaporate so quickly. And we have to include auto immune disease in this things like Sjogren’s or lupus. By the way, I’ve done a great video blog on Sjogren’s You can find that on my YouTube channel. But in any event, if you have any autoimmune disease, it can affect your eyes. Sjogren’s tends to affect the meibomian glands and also the salivary glands. So that’s number one. Now, in addition to the oily gland dysfunction, you can have inflammation in the eyelids as well. So you’ve got a double whammy, where the glands could be clogged, but also because of the inflammation in the eyelids. This also can cause an inability to produce the right kind of tears. And so when you don’t have the oily tears, you’re gonna get evaporation. So let’s talk about some of the tests that you can use to diagnose dry eye syndrome. The first test is called Shermer.

tear strip. This is where you take a little paper filter, and you put it on the inside part of the lower eyelid. You keep it there about five minutes. And this will give you a measurement on how much tears you actually produce. The second test I like to use is called tear breakup time. This is where I put a special dye on the cornea. And then I watch a person blink, and I can see how quickly the dry spots emerge on the cornea. And that tells me about their tear stability.

Another test I like to use is examining the meibomian glands, which sit right above the eyelashes, this is the place where we produce the oily part of the glands. So I can palpate that area, feel it and see if there’s any pain or inflammation is there hardness in the glands. And that’s going to tell me if the glands are impacted, or there’s a problem in the production of the oily part of the tears. Again, it’s the oily part of the tears that help us from the tears evaporating too quickly. And this is a major problem for most people. And that’s where you get the diagnosis meibomian gland dysfunction, or blepharitis.

The next test that I use is something called tear osmolarity test, which measures the concentration of salt. So the higher the salt, the higher the osmolarity the more dry I and I just use a special paper strip to measure the salt in the tears. And this is another indicator of dry eye syndrome. So the last test I sometimes use measures the inflammation in the tears. So I use a marker called MMP dash nine, which can tell me if this reading is high, that there’s an inflammatory component to the dry eye syndrome.

Now I want to move to some treatment options. So some of the more medical treatments would be a treatment modality called lipo flow, which is like going to a spa and they actually heat your eyelids, they excise the oily part of the meibomian glands. And this is a way for you to get rid of the inflammation that’s causing the dry eye syndrome. Now this is a symptom approach. It’s pretty expensive, but it does work well for a period of time, anywhere between six months and a year. Another treatment modality that is more in the mainstream is using the draw eyedrops Restasis. And this is usually done about twice a day. Again, it’s more of a symptom based approach. It doesn’t work immediately. But it’s what’s offered in most eyecare offices. Sometimes different rounds of corticosteroid eyedrops or done for about a two week period. If there’s an inflammatory disease process going on, some doctors recommend something called the brooder mask. This is where you heat up this mask and you put it over the eyelids. And this can give you temporary relief. In the more invasive areas of treatment, there’s something called floppy eyelid syndrome where you can go to an AKA plastic surgeon, and you can get your eyelids redone. That’s the general treatment landscape if you’re going to go the more traditional or mainstream approach. So now I’m going to talk about some of the things that’s worked in my practice. But I also want to give a caveat that each person has their own journey with dry eye and one size does not fit all. It’s kind of like my eye floaters. Treatment. We think that there’s this one magic eyedrop out there, that’s going to do it, and it doesn’t happen. So the first thing to know about dry eye syndrome is usually there’s a systemic and metabolic reason why our eyes are drying out. If we’re under a lot of either general stress, or I stress from being on our screens, this produces more cortisol in the blood, and it creates a stress on our adrenal glands. And so our sympathetic nervous system is going to be working over time. And so all of our mucous membranes are going to be drying out faster. We call this the fight, flight freeze response. And so you can do the most magical pharmaceutical drugs or surgery. But unless you’re dead

Dealing with the causative factors and it starts systemically and metabolically, then you’re not going to make much progress. So the adrenals can be involved. Also, another very important endocrine supporter is your thyroid. And so if you’ve got low thyroid are high thyroid, you have a much higher risk of developing dry eye syndrome. So, in my world, I like to go to functional medicine doctors, naturopathic doctors and find out what’s happening on my digestive level, my gut level. So the thyroid and the adrenals are really involved. And women since they tend to have more dry than men, there’s an estrogen component, meaning that if you have low estrogen, or if you have high estrogen, this is another contributing factor for developing dry eye symptoms.

When we talk about inflammation, what are you eating? So my suggestion would be just as a general guideline is increase your healthy fats and oils. So this would be your omega threes, especially emphasizing the d h, a component of Omega three, you’re probably looking at about 2000 milligrams a day of Omega three, but you want to get it from things like wild cod salmon from walnuts and chia seeds. You can also get an algae based Omega three which is more vegan, focused, but think Omega three, and healthy omega six. So that’s extra virgin olive oil, you want to cut out things like potato chips and pastry items, because those are the bad fats, the trans fats, canola, canola oil, and those seed oils, they’re going to wreak havoc and increase your inflammatory response, and your eyes are definitely going to pay the price for that. You want either low carb diet, high fat, healthy fat, and protein. Again, work with your functional medicine doctor or naturopathic doctor. I also like to do a little bit of intermittent fasting there. Sometimes that can be helpful in healing or improving your metabolic health. But again, I would work under the auspices of a functional medicine doctor, get a blood panel, find out what your baseline is. But definitely, your digestion and your systemic and metabolic wealth are huge influencers on the eyes. So what about the eyes, let’s talk about artificial tears. Again, you’re looking for preservative free, something like Thera tears or Oasis and you can do those four to six times a day. Again, if you want to get a little more aggressive, you can use my MSM eyedrops, I would start with the 5%, I would not go to the 15 that’s going to burn too much. You can also take the MSM drops and you can massage the eyelids make sure your hands are clean.

And then in the evening, this is where it gets really interesting because using a little heat on the eyelids with a warm compress, but I tend to use either my organic castor oil but you have to be careful that you’re not using too much on a compress because that could clog your eyes out even more even though there’s a wonderful research study on my Bohmian gland dysfunction being treated by using castor oil eyedrops. If you have a really oily constitution to begin with, I would just start with a little bit of castor oil start with a warm compress. Some other ideas could be chamomile tea compresses. You can also do a red raspberry leaf or eyebright. So I like to combine the herbal teas and make a compress out of that and make it on the warm side. That reduces inflammation and it slowly starts to open up the meibomian glands. This is probably the most important part of this podcast. I’m going to talk about the biggest mistake that both eye doctors and patients make it’s not the patient’s fault. And that is that one of the causes of dry is how we are using our eyes. And what optical system glasses or contacts are we utilizing to look at our screens. So let me break this down a little bit.

It’s very important that we go beyond the regular eye exam which is I can read the distance eye chart and I get a prescription based on the blurring

As of what I’m seeing in that chart, now, I will admit some times the eye doctor will take a look at the, the near visual acuity, especially if you’re over 40. But the problem is, is that if you’re near sighted, and you get one prescription for distance, and you’re using that for your screen time, that is going to create a lot of eye stress, muscular stress, and eventually it’s going to dry the eyes out, because you’re using a prescription that’s way too strong. So if you’re nearsighted, and you’re over 40, or you’re near sighted, and you’re under 40, you want to make sure you’re wearing something less when you’re on your screens. Now, if you’re farsighted, this gets even trickier because the doctor is going to want to put you into progressive lenses. And if you Google Dr. Byrne, progressive lenses, you’re gonna get a whole list of why progressive lenses cause a lot of eye problems. But basically, in a progressive lens, you’re splitting your eyes and your vision into three separate compartments. And the only part of the compartment that you can use is a very tiny part of the lens. So you’re putting an incredible amount of stress on your brain, your mind and your eyes when you’re focusing on your screens. So if you are on progressive lenses, get off of them. Tell your doctor you want a prescription just for your computer, or just for reading. The principle is, the bigger the window you look through, the more relaxed your eyes are, again, how you use something is going to affect the physiology and the anatomy, and the natural mechanism of keeping your eyes lubricated. When you’re in progressive lenses, that’s going to go out the window.

Another thing that you want to stay away from is mono vision. So if you’re a contact lens wearer, and the doctor says, oh, let’s correct one eye for distance and one eye for reading. Absolutely no, you want to correct both eyes for distance and get something in a single vision prescription that you would wear over the distance prescription. Again, your eyes are going to be much more relaxed, and the chances of better lubrication will go way up. So no monovision if you’ve had cataract surgery, or LASIK surgery, no monovision and LASIK surgery, you may run into some difficulties with dry eye so you’re gonna have to pay attention to that. And even in cataract surgery, same thing. And you don’t want to get the multifocal lenses, or the astigmatism lenses unless you have a really high amount of astigmatism. Correct both eyes for distance. And remember, the inter ocular lenses they put in your eye do not have any blue blocking capability. So you’re wide open to blue light damage if you’ve had cataract surgery. So you want to make sure you’re wearing blue blockers if you’ve had cataract surgery. And last but not least, try to find a doctor who can test your visual coordination, your visual focusing, in other words, your visual skills, because it’s the visual skills if they’re not optimal. If you’re not using both eyes of together, this creates more eye stress. And on top of that, if you’re wearing a lens that’s too strong for you. This is a big contributing factor to dry eye syndrome. And it’s never talked about. I never see it in any of the dry eye blogs, any of the dry eye specialists because they’re only interested in controlling symptoms. And they’re only interested in doing that through pharmaceutical drugs and surgeries. other modalities, there’s red light therapy that can be very helpful. Again, my red exercise glasses at the 670 nanometers. You wear the glasses in the morning, say three to 10 minutes. This can be very helpful in increasing the mitochondria function in the eyelids and in the eyes. Whenever the mitochondria is increasing, this tends to reduce oxidative stress, inflammation and it creates a better detoxification system. So red light in the way that I’m prescribing it can work really well. And again, if you’re on your screens, it’s really

important that you take frequent breaks. If I had my druthers I’d have you go outside into the natural sunlight for 15 to 30 minutes, that’s a great way to reset your eyes, especially in the morning. But the blue blockers are critically important, especially if you’re on screen time, especially after 6pm. So after 6pm, this is when the blue light tricks the pineal gland, and you don’t produce the same amount of melatonin. So your sleep is going to be off, and sleep, exercise, stress reduction, these are all things that are going to play into whether or not you’re going to respond to more of the natural remedies. And finally, in terms of eye exercises, I think the best exercise that helps open up the meibomian glands and relaxes your eyes and balances your nervous system is my n palm hum, that’s where you rub your hands together. You cut them over your eyes, your eyes are closed, you take a breath in through your nose.

And on the exhale, you make a really robust, low humming sound.

I like to do about 12 of those. And you’ll find that after the 12 Pom, and I use the end because you put the tongue on the roof of the mouth. And you think about the letter and when you do the humming and so that’s a Taoist practice, when you put the tongue on the roof of the mouth, it’s completing an acupuncture circuit. So there’s a lot of energetic connection. When the tongue is at the roof of the mouth, and you’re doing that humming sound, you’re getting the vibration in here. Obviously, lymphatic stimulation is important. cranial sacral therapy can be really helpful. Acupuncture can also be great doing a liver cleanse, you know, checking in with the liver gallbladder. I’ve talked about that in other podcasts. Remember, if you’re having some challenges with your liver or gallbladder, you may not be absorbing your eye nutrients, the fat soluble nutrients very well. And this is why your eyes are getting so the bleep depleted. You’re not having the resiliency in being able to

continue to focus, especially if you’re doing a lot of screen time. So I’m going to end with this and say that dry eye syndrome is a complicated situation. And it can be very painful can be very frustrating. And there’s not one size that fits all. And it’s perfectly okay to do some of the mainstream treatments if you can break the symptom cycle. So that would be things like a little bit of risk stasis, a little bit of the corticosteroid eyedrops also the lip of flow or the intense pulse light therapy, and then you can start incorporating some of the more natural eyedrops the herbs, dietary changes, and you’ll get there. So that’s my show for today. I want to thank you so much for tuning in. Until next time, take care.

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