New Treatment Helps Those With Dry Eye
MIAMI (CBSMiami) - A breakthrough for an eye condition which affects tens of million of Americans is right here in South Florida. It' not only treats the symptoms, but the problem.
Dry eye is particularly common among pre-menopausal and menopausal women, but can affect anyone.
Cecile Armstrong said she used to take driving at night and using a computer for granted until she started having trouble with her eye sight.
After exhausting eye drops and warm compress options, Armstrong, who lives in Puerto Rico, decided to visit Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami. She was eventually diagnosed with dry eye.
Now it may not sound like a major health problem, but Armstrong says it can certainly make your life miserable.
"What does it feel like? In the beginning you start blinking continuous blinking all the time, and your eyes feel sticky. Really sticky, so you know something is wrong because you start using eye drops, and it doesn't work," said Armstrong.
"The classical symptoms area is blurry vision. They feel they can't see and they are right because tear film is a very important part of the lens in cornea. The normal quality of this liquid should be like olive oil, but a patient with this disease will have something more pasty like lard," said Dr. Victor Perez.
Perez says there are two types of dry eye. One where that lard like material mixes with tears which prevents them from evaporating and ultimately clogs the glands that are supposed to provide moisture.
In the second type, the eye glands just don't produce enough of the water-like material in tears.
Fortunately for Armstrong, there is a new thermal pulsation technology called Lipiflow that manually helps your eye create proper lubrication by cleaning, clearing and massaging the eye lids and glands.
"It's a very smart machine. It applies temperature and at the same time squeezes glands. It's kind of like milking a cow with the safe pressure. It doesn't hurt," said Perez.
You have one session and then a lot depends on your maintenance at home but you come in sporadically for checkups to make sure you are progressing and that you are doing exercises like with other therapies.
After a few months of Lipiflow therapy, Armstrong regained more than a happier look.
