About a month ago I had another dry eye incident. This time it happened on a Monday and it was bad enough that I had to miss work. The problem is that before it was completely healed it happened again. I didn’t miss work the second time but when it happens twice in a row like that it takes longer to heal.
So I decided to go to a different eye doctor for a second opinion on my dry eye situation. He did all sorts of tests such as cornea cell count, thickness of my cornea, etc. I think the first doctor I went to did all or most of the same tests. And the results were the same. There isn’t anything wrong with my eyes. Everything was normal. He did give me a stronger nighttime eye lubricant though.
The one thing this eye doctor said that he would try if the new stuff didn’t work was some drops to dry out my cornea during the night. Why would he do that you ask? Well apparently he was saying that during the night the cornea absorbs moisture and swells up. He thinks it may be swelling against my eyelid and sticking to it from the pressure.
So far I’ve been on 3 different types of eye ointment at night. The first one was called Lacrilube, the second was GenTeal and the latest is called Tears Renewed. The only difference seems to be the quantity of Petrolatum versus Mineral Oil. Here is the comparison:
Tears Renewed: 88% Petrolatum, 12% Mineral Oil
GenTeal: 85% Petrolatum, 15% Mineral Oil
Lacrilube: 56.8% Petrolatum, 42.5% Mineral Oil, 0.5% Chlorobutanol
I like the GenTeal bottle the best because the tip is plastic but other than that I can’t tell much difference at night. The other bottles are all metal and tend to irritate the eye when it touches them when I apply the gel to my eyes at night.
So the bottom line is that I spent $150 to learn what I already know..
