A Solution for Eye Irritation From Glaucoma Drops

Many glaucoma patients complain of discomfort from using glaucoma eye drops. The discomfort can including stinging, itching, burning, or even a foreign body sensation (which can also feel like a scratch on the cornea in my experience).

I was speaking to a friend tonight who said she uses the gel-type artificial tears before instilling her glaucoma eye drops and that this helps prevent the discomfort that results from the glaucoma drops. She has used the artificial tears in a range from five to ten minutes before the gluaucoma drops to immediately before ("both almost together").

My first question was, What do these gel (thick) artificial tears do to the effectiveness of the glaucoma eye drops? Well, once again self-tonometry comes to the rescue. My friend has been doing self-tonometry daily for several years. She has the excellent Reichert AT555 tonometer.

Her response was that the thick gel artificial tears do not reduce the efficacy of the glaucoma medications at all -- not even a bit. I believe she is in an excellent position to give reliable quantitative feedback on her experience with this issue due to her long history of self-tonometry.

This conversation underscores the value of self-tonometry. I suspect that a typical glaucoma patient could ask several different ophthalmologists and get several different answers to a question like this. I think the standard recommendation is to use the artificial tears at least five minutes after using the glaucoma eye drops. And I imagine most ophthalmologists would not be in favor of using the artificial tears immediately before using glaucoma eye drops.

However, rather than having to rely on opinions, my friend was able to discover the actual result for herself through self-tonometry. This is one small example of the myriad ways that self-tonometry removes the guess-work in glaucoma management.

In her own words:

Just to be on the safe side I think I would recommend (to other people) putting in the gel 5-10 minutes before the glaucoma drops. It's very rare that I need to use artificial tears these days. In fact it is very rare that I need the gel at all - mostly I guess because I don't need many glaucoma eye drops since starting self-tonometry! My self tonometry must be saving our [insurance/National Health Service] a lot of money!