Grandmas have lots of sage advice.  However when it comes to eye drops, what works best for her...  probably is not going to work for you!

If you suffer from dry eyes and irritation, the first step is to figure out the why.  Your eye care professional will use tests, observation and history to establish if your symptoms are related to things such as: medications, allergies, genetic causes, environment, visual demands, age, infection or lid issues.    Once cause(s) is established, treatments are targeted to solve the issue.

Different over-the-counter rewetting eye drops work on different targets and if you are aiming at the wrong thing... your drops will not work well.  They will fail to work at all or you will have to use them over-and-over to achieve relief.    You can go though something like a product guidance questionnaire for basic targeting but your Optometrist will be the expert for answers.

The most common mis-targeting of drops that I see in clinic...

Most advertisements for eye drops seem to feature young individuals blissfully instilling drops in white-bleached eyes.   This is not reality and the #1 consumers of eye drops are over 50 females.  Because that is the biggest market, most drop formulations are designed to target the issues of that demographic.

If you use a computer all day - regardless of your age - highly-branded, heavily-marketed,  lubrication-centric formulations are typically the wrong choice.

Directionally, a computer user need 1] evaporation protection due to the long hours staring at a screen and 2] moisture.  Anti-evaporation eye drops are better and are designed to target issues the evaporation issues that fuel digital dry eye.

Two examples of anti-evaporation eye drops that we successfully use in clinic are
Thealoz DUO and I-Drop MGD.  I would encourage you to try these drops if you have dry eye symptoms that are worsened by screen use  e.g. office, extended phone and/or tablet use

Remember the drop's target must match your dry eye's underlying cause to be effective,

Dr Morris

RELATED TOPICS: The Basics of Dry Eye, How to read an Omega 3 Label, Eye Lid Care / Blepharitis, What is the most potent Omega 3 we have found