Sudden New Irritation to preservative free drops?

[vivian3090]

So I went to see my ophthalmologist today for a check up and no surprise they did nothing to acknowledge my eye inflammation and dryness other than tell me it takes a while for Restasis to kick in and start working. He even said my tear film has improved from last time.
all he really did was tell me to keep putting drops in.
He gave me refresh optiv advanced, I tried it, it helped but like 30 mins later they started burning.
So I put refresh optiv sensitive presev free. (ones I have been on for a couple months and had no problem with) and they immediately started burning and becoming bloodshot.

I waited maybe another hour and tried again, still more burning.

is this just a possible reaction to the other drops, or have I become sensitive to the preservative free drops???

Should I wait a day or so and try again?

I use thera tears preservative free and as of right now they stopped the burning ( eyes still a bit inflames but much better)

I'll be pretty bummed if I can't use optive anymore :/ they worked, until now obviously, just hope it's not permanent?

[Rebecca Petris]

I would never use a drop that I reacted to like that.

become sensitive to the preservative free drops???

Well, you can't be sensitive to what ain't there (i.e. preservative). But you can definitely become sensitive to an ingredient in a drop. Like carboxymethylcellulose which is commonly used in drops (I think there's some in Optive). There's a lot of people with sensitivity or allergy to that. You're doing the right thing by noticing these reactions and trying to figure out what to do. If it were me I'd switch to something with completely different active ingredients (but still preservative free) for awhile.

[vivian3090]

Thanks Rebecca I may have to look into a different night time oinment as well. Noticed that my left eye is still irritated. so it may be brand I'm using..but we'll see! Thank you!