Stopped the thick ointments at night long ago, but are the thick gel drops OK?

[Betsy]

So the super thick vaseline like stuff I stopped using at night because not only did it not seem to help but also after the fact I read that it decreases oxygen to the eyes and can make you worse.

So now I use my regular preservative free drops but wonder if I can use the gel ones? There are ones that are thicker others more liquidy gel, but both not as thick as the original stuff I was taking. One is kinda close, forget the brand at the moment.

What do you guys think on this topic? Thanks!

[mgshutterbug]

Ointment (Muro) vs gel drops, my experience

If I don't use Muro ointment every night, when I open my eyes in the a.m., I am pretty much guaranteed an erosion. During the day I use Genteal gel drops, which do a much better job with lubrication, decreasing pain than any brand of preservative free eye drops. Genteal gel/ointment breaks down pretty quickly in my eyes, affording me little protection. I don't know about the research, but I wouldn't think that 8 hrs of ointment such as Muro would have a deleterious effect on oxygen exchange in the eye. My experience, which may be very different from yours, is that the ointment thins out enough in 2 hours after application that oxygen would pretty freely get to the cornea. Definitely in 3 hrs, oxygen exchange would occur with me. Keep us posted on what you end up using, Betsy, and the results.

[Betsy]

Thank you Shutterbug. Which of these do you use? Do they contain BAK?
http://www.walgreens.com/search/resu...+drops&x=0&y=0

I was using the genteal severe gel because I worried when I had the genteal or systane nightime ointment that it would be too much for my eyes as far as clogging them up from what I had read on here. Refresh Lacrilube was the worst, so thick and gooey. Though if it helped I would have stuck with it. I am not sure what to do now, but I struggle with my eyes all day and night so I am not doing anything that's helping it seems. I mostly use preservative free vials throughout the day because I worry about preservatives and I will never ever use anything with BAK. I wish I could find the info I read on here about some nighttime drops not being so good, so I can make sure I don't use those. Yours doesn't contain BAK right?