Eye drops making dry eye/soreness worse?

[dgreen97]

Hi everyone,

New to the forum and I searched for this question but couldn't find it. Has anyone ever put drops in to try and relieve dry eye and it actually made it worse? I use walgreens preservative free carboymethycellulose 0.5 vials during the daytime and sometimes when I put them in my eyes get sore and seemingly even more dry than they were before. Any ideas? What do you recommend as the best lubricant?

Thanks

Alex

[fed up kate]

hi Alex

well from my experience and to many on here there isnt really "the best" lubricant its just unfortuantly a matter of experimenting with loads of different ones to see which suits you better.
its just we all have our own preference with drops which may not suit other people and if i try ones that makes me worse it goes straight in the bin and i try again with some more.

just always get preseravtive free ones

there is a poll on here where people have said what they use which may be some help for you

best of luck but carry on searching this forum its helped me so much

[magoo]

I am allergic to any drops or gels containing methylcellulose.

I use Systane PF drops, but there are many different drops out there. Not saying you're allergic, but it is a possibility.

[LasikLady]

Me too Magoo

I'm finding the Systane Ultra PF drops are the best now for me when I feel the need for a drop. In the past I have used others and actually felt sore and more dry, so you aren't the only one.

[regina]

yes rebounding from the eye drops

I have spent so much money on all the drops out there...even tried pure castor oil and mineral oil. They always feel good in the beginning but it seems to irritate my eyes and have to use the drops more often...and with awful results where I thought that I would have been better off using nothing and just closing my eyes. I use moisture chamber glasses a lot.

One day my eyes were dying....didnt have any eye ointment...so I used my burts bee balm chapstick. It worked really well! I close my eyes and roll it over my lids. It seems to keep the water in the eye instead of evaporating on the lids. And there doesnt seem to have a rebounding effect like the eye drops. If I HAD to use drops... the natural similasan for dry eye was the least irritating for me.

[marcalans]

Not uncommon

It's not uncommon for eye drops to actually irritate the eyes if used too much. It happens to me also. One of my doctors thinks it's due to not using them enough, however. He said it's analogous to having a bad sunburn that really stings just after applying lotion, so it's a sign to use lotion (drops in the case of eyes) more frequently. My experience is not consistent with his theory.

I find that the irritation is minimized by avoiding prolonged use of any one product. I try to switch them every few days or so. Sometimes, if my eyes are feeling relatively good, but I insert drops just as a matter of routine, the eyes immediately feel worse. I also experiment with changing the temperature of the drops. Sometimes keeping them in the refrigerator seems to help, but other times holding the container for a few minutes so that the contents warms up a little also seems to help.

[dgreen97]

not uncommon then

Thanks for your replies. I kind of figured it was an individual thing as to what eye drops to use but I thought i'd ask anyway. marcalans, it looks like you have the same type of problem i do. this just happened to me today with the eye drops. my eyes were feeling mildly dry during the day but otherwise I didn't have much soreness at all. I put the eye drops in out of habit to try and relieve the dryness and after they soaked in my eyes started feeling more dry and sore than before I put them in. this is a weird occurrence because i thought this was supposed to fix the problem. the other question i have is why would using them more often correct this problem? is it because your body gets used to them?

[regina]

One doc also told me that if the drops irritated it more...I need to use more....unfortunately for me that didn't work...dont know why I am different than most. All drops and Ive tried probably 20 or so irritated them worse the more I used them. I also changed up the products...again burts bee balm and moisture glasses seem to be the only thing that keeps the pain manageable.

[magoo]

dgreen, why not try a drop with no methylcellulose? if you still have the same problem at least you'll know it isn't simply a sensitivity to the methylcellulose component.

i suffered for a very long time until i realized i had this sensitivity and sure wished i had discovered it earlier

[dgreen97]

new drop

I actually am trying a new drop now. It has hypromellose as the ingredient. Anybody heard of this stuff and is it any good? I've been looking around and I've found that some more expensive drops tend to use propylene glycol or however you spell it.

[magoo]

just so you know: Hypromellose (INN), short for hydroxypropyl methylcellulose

[dgreen97]

lol great thanks for that info. i didn't know that so maybe thats why i haven't see any difference... i want to try an eye drop without any "mellose" or "cellulose" in it.

[dgreen97]

one more question i forgot to ask... what would be some telltale signs that you're allergic to methycellulose? i use theratears liquid gel at night (which is carboxymethycellulose) and don't seem to have that much problem with it but if I use just regular drops with that ingredient from walgreens sometimes it makes my eyes sore.

[dgreen97]

Polyethylene Glycol 400 0.4% Lubricant
Propylene Glycol 0.3% Lubricant

those are the two lubricants i was talking about. i see these are used a lot in systane drops which is what some of you mentioned using. are the systane drops any good? i've never used them before.

[spmcc]

active ingredients in OTC eye drops

When I first went to my current ophthalmologist in 2003, he told me that there are basically 4 main active ingredients in OTC eye drops. He gave me a sample of each to try for a week and I was to log how my eyes felt everyday noting such things as itchiness, pain, burning, blurring etc.

The 4 samples he gave me were:

1) liposic
2) refresh endura
3) systane (at that time there was no PF) and
4) artelac

I believe there should now be a 5 category/example because Sooth is a newer drop with another active ingredient.

I would always recommend that everyone do this type of test with their OTC drops... but, for me, as a rule-of-thumb, my eyes always feel better with PF.

All the best.