glaucoma medication

My new glaucoma specialist has me on a complete drug washout period for the next few weeks. I am guessing that she wants to establish a baseline for diagnoses and treatment. Anyhow, because my ocular hypertension can run pretty high pressures, this process is a bit unnerving. But my main point here is to point out some interesting observations concerning weaning off of xalatan (the main med I take regularly).

Correct instillation of eye drops is crucial for successful treatment of eye disease. Many patients have difficulties instilling eye drops, especially patients with loss of fixation, who cannot see the tip of the bottle. These patients may turn to harmful techniques, such as touching the dropper tip to the eye, or wasteful ones, such as feeling the sensation of drops hitting the eye or lower lid.¹ Non-compliance may become an issue as well, resulting from a combination of poor drop administration and frustration. The frustration stems from an inability to see the bottle tip.

We describe a new method of drop instillation which increases the accuracy with which eye drops are dispensed, thereby decreasing the incidence of harmful techniques, and possibly increasing compliance.