Anyone here using amniotic drops?

[hosanna13]

Wanted to see if anyone here has been using amniotic drops such as Regener-eyes or Genesis for dry eye or other ocular issues and what their experience has been. I'm interested in trying them out, but they do not seem to be widely available. I'm curious to find out how people have been getting them and their cost. Thanks!

[linguininess]

I tried Regener-eyes. I used a 1 month supply, but it lasted me about 2 weeks at the rate of 4 drops a day. I can't really say it was worth it. It cost me quite a lot.... about $250 for 2 weeks. Although it didn't make my eyes worse, there were days where I thought it helped, but I honestly it was probably just a placebo effect. At the end of the day, my eyes were still red and dry. I'd probably try again if these drops were only a fraction of the current price.

[hosanna13]

Thanks linguininess. I totally agree that $300 per month is unsustainable, esp for a chronic condition. I've been in touch with Genesis, and their drops run about $275/month too.

[linguininess]

Yep haha. Really unsustainable. I also want to mention that their drops have not gone through clinical trials (definitely not FDA approved), yet they are marketing it as a medicinal product? Very sketchy and if you ask any doctor about it, they will say the same thing probably.

[hosanna13]

There are some studies published showing their benefit and superiority over serum tears, but I would like to see bioassays and quality control to see if the drops actually contain what they say.

[PhoenixEyes]

Were the studies to do with amniotic membrane tissue (like surgical grafts, amniotic contact lenses like Prokera, AmbioDisk etc.) or specifically amniotic fluid drops like Regener-Eyes and Genesis? I think fluid drops don't retain the original tissue so may not have the same properties.

RegenerEyes patent description:
"The formulation is a sterile de-cellularized human amniotic fluid (D-HAF), devoid of amniotic stem cells and elements of micronized membrane or chorion particles."
https://www.google.com/patents/WO2017062948A1?cl=en

On that patent page there is mention of a trial they did where one group received amniotic fluid and other groups received autologous serum or umbilical cord serum (e.g. OptiSerum), it sounds like the results were that all groups experienced similar benefits.

Two drops [of amniotic fluid] were applied on each eye of ten patients suffering from the dry eye syndrome. This treatment was repeated twice per day for ten days. Two other control groups of 10 patients similarly received either their own serum or a serum prepared from cord blood.

Results

8 to 10 patients out of 10 in each group declared that they had experienced a significant benefit. For all patients, this clinical improvement was correlated with a partial or complete decrease of their initial corneal inflammation. Nine patient had "severe" dry eye, one was "moderate."

There was also an old study that didn't find human amniotic fluid to be superior to serum sadly:

http://iovs.arvojournals.org/article...icleid=2377788

In Italy there's HAMT-EU which retains enough of the structure from the original tissue that it is classed as a transplant by their country's medicines authority. Sadly that also makes it difficult to obtain outside Italy due to the border regulations on human tissue.

The makers of Prokera are developing Regenesol eye drops with morselized tissue fragments of amniotic membrane and umbilical cord. I heard that it may not retain enough of the tissue structure to be classed as a transplant sadly, though they might change that in the future, but hopefully it'll have more properties than pure fluid. I heard it may be released in February 2018 in America (was November 2017 but was pushed back). Hopefully as Prokera is already distributed outside America then Regenesol may be too (I'm in UK). Regenesol trial studies:

Morselized Amniotic Membrane Tissue for Refractory Corneal Epithelial Defects in Cicatricial Ocular Surface Diseases

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4874450/

Topical Cryopreserved Amniotic Membrane and Umbilical Cord Eye Drops Promote Re-Epithelialization

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28288269

AM-UC Drops Quicken Re-Epithelialization After PRK, PTK

https://www.healio.com/ophthalmology...-after-prk-ptk

[hosanna13]

Thanks, Phoenixeyes. Have you tried amniotic drops or prokera yourself? As I understand it, the drops concentrate specific growth factors and cytokines found in amniotic fluid, so they don't have to contain the tissue itself. I'm willing to try just for the heck of it.

[Guest]

Have there been any updates to these cytokines drops? Are they available?

[miki-mama]

I have been using Regener-eye drops for the past 2 +/- years. In my case, I feel I have definitely benefited from using the drops. I have been pretty consistent in using the drops 2x daily, with a few short off periods when I was traveling and I didn’t want to risk spoiling the drops which need to be refrigerated.
For short enough gaps (less than 1 week) I felt no difference. I went without them for a month recently, and definitely felt a difference, My eyes felt noticeably worse. I can say that my eyes have never felt better since I had Stevens Johnson Syndrome 20+ years ago. I attribute the improved conditions to my well fitting scleral lenses and regener-eye drops. I also use blood serum and FML Forte drops daily.

[diydry]

Thanks for sharing. I’m glad it’s helping you and that you can notice the difference so clearly. It sounds like amniotic fluid drops and amniotic membranes could be the future of DES treatment.

I was surprised to recently learn that my current doctor’s office is now prescribing amniotic fluid drops for severe cases if serum tears aren’t helping. The reason it came up at all is because I asked him about what he thought about platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and he said the data wasn’t there yet. Apparently he thinks amniotic fluid drops are more promising for whatever reason... although I can’t imagine footing that bill for more than a few rounds of treatment unless there’s clear improvement. Did it take you 2 years to notice the difference or do you think it started working sooner?

I wonder if it might work for LASIK casualties like me...

[diydry]

Also curious how you manage to squeeze in applying all these drops while wearing sclerals! Do you have a routine? I’m trying to figure out how to apply my serum tears 4x a day now and still wear my lenses.

[miki-mama]

Thanks for sharing. I’m glad it’s helping you and that you can notice the difference so clearly. It sounds like amniotic fluid drops and amniotic membranes could be the future of DES treatment.

I was surprised to recently learn that my current doctor’s office is now prescribing amniotic fluid drops for severe cases if serum tears aren’t helping. The reason it came up at all is because I asked him about what he thought about platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and he said the data wasn’t there yet. Apparently he thinks amniotic fluid drops are more promising for whatever reason... although I can’t imagine footing that bill for more than a few rounds of treatment unless there’s clear improvement. Did it take you 2 years to notice the difference or do you think it started working sooner?

I wonder if it might work for LASIK casualties like me...

I have been using the amniotic fluid drops called Regener-Eye for two years. I have noticed the improvement in my conditions (reduced inflammation, less pain and photophobia, reduced need for artificial tears) within a week. The conditions continued to improve over the following months until they seem to plateau. On a trip three months ago, I was not able to use the drops for about 1 month, the conditions I had previous to using the drops returned slowly, but once I returned home and started back on the drops, my eye conditions returned to the state before the month long gap.

As for using the drops while wearing the scleral lenses which I also wear, I add a drop of serum drops and a drop of Regener-Eye drops in my lenses and try to keep them on as long as possible before rinsing the lenses out.

[Hokucat]

diydry , a few months ago I got serum tears again (to see if it will help me further improve), and like miki-mama I also put a couple drops in my sclerals, along with a few drops of PF Genteal Tears, and fill the rest with saline. I mentioned putting the serum tears in to my PROSE scleral doctor last week, and she said that was fine. I’ve read others who put in more than a few drops of the serum. Logically it would seem the serum tears are benefitting the eyes all day when used in the sclerals, although perhaps to a lesser degree since it’s diluted by the saline. Anyways, my PROSE doctor said the surface of my eyes looked pretty good, so maybe it’s helping.

[diydry]

Thanks for sharing that info. I’ll try putting a drop of serum in the sclerals. I may have to mix with more celluvisc since I do notice that celluvisc seems to help prevent the same degree of clouding I was experiencing.