Effective Dry Eye Treatments in Calgary

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Dry Eye Assessment

To book a dry eye assessment, or for more information on vision correction surgeries, please call 403-930-9931.

Dry Eye Solutions Tailored to Your Needs

One of our main focuses at Vector Eye Centre is diagnosing and treating dry eye disease. Dry eyes can occur for many reasons, and symptoms differ from person to person. We will identify the underlying cause of your dry eyes and address your potential risk factors. We have adopted some of the world’s leading treatment options to alleviate your symptoms, so you can get back to what matters most in your life.

Some of the care techniques we use include, but are not limited to:

  • Topical medications
  • Systemic medications
  • Thermal lid treatments 
  • Surgical treatments 
  • Environmental adaptation 
  • Diet changes & supplements

Once we understand the cause of your dry eye disease, we can tailor your treatment plan to help mitigate your symptoms.

What is Dry Eye Disease?

Dry eyes are a common condition that may develop for a variety of reasons, leading to inflammation of the ocular surface. When this happens, it causes a variety of symptoms that may include burning, watering, irritation, stringy mucus, blurry vision, or even sensitivity to light.

The two major underlying causes of dry eyes are:

  • Tear film deficiency. This occurs when your eyes are not producing enough tears, or a specific layer of your tears is insufficient, to keep your eyes hydrated and comfortable.
  • Evaporative dry eye. This happens when the Meibomian glands in your eyelids are not producing or releasing enough oil to maintain your tears on the surface of your eye, or the quality of that oil is poor.

What Can Cause Dry Eyes?

To treat your dry eyes effectively, we need to dive into what is causing your symptoms. Some of the most common causes can include:

Medical conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes can factor into dry eye development. Please advise your ophthalmologist of any medical conditions that you might have when you come in for an assessment.

Medications can cause dry eyes. Certain medications like antihistamines, oral contraceptives, and antidepressants may all lead to dry eyes. Please let your ophthalmologist know what medications you might be taking, as these may be a factor in your symptoms.

Your eyes can become dry if your the small meibomian glands along your eyelid margins are found to be blocked, damaged, or inflamed. Meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD) is a very common cause of dry eye disease. We can diagnose MGD and offer multiple treatment strategies.

Wind or dry air can also cause dry eyes. Depending on the severity of your symptoms, your ophthalmologist may recommend medications or environmental changes like adding a humidifier to your home or office.

When we focus heavily on a task such as looking at a computer, we may decrease our blink rate. Our team of dry eye experts can offer different tips and tricks to help increase your blink rate when you are performing focused tasks like reading or computer work.

According to research, the chances of developing dry eyes increases after the age of 50, with chances rising every five years. Studies have also found women to be more susceptible to developing dry eyes than men.

What are My Treatment Options?

Our experienced team of ophthalmologists offer the best treatment strategies to alleviate your dry eye symptoms.

Our treatments include:

Topical medication, or eye drops, may be recommended depending on the cause of your condition. In addition to artificial tears, we offer a wide variety of prescription eye drops that can help reduce your dry eye symptoms. Eye drops we typically recommend include:

  • Topical immunomodulators. These drops help reduce inflammation.
  • Topical steroids. These drops are applied to help reduce inflammation on the eyelid margins and the ocular surface.
  • Topical antibiotics. These drops are used to reduce redness and irritation caused by bacteria.
  • Topical mucolytics. These drops are used to break up mucus or debris found on the ocular surface. These eye drops are generally used in moderate to severe dry eye situations.
  • Topical blepharitis treatment. These treatments are used to manage blepharitis and demodex mites on the eyelid margins and lashes.
  • Autologous serum tears. These drops are developed using serum from the patient’s own blood that provides healing properties to the patient’s ocular surface, reducing inflammation.
  • Platelet-rich plasma. Like autologous serum tears, these drops are developed from the patient’s blood, helping to promote healing and growth factors on the ocular surface.

Vector Eye Centre also offers a variety of oral medications that can be taken to help treat the symptoms of dry eyes. Some of these medications include:

  • Oral antibiotics. Antibiotics can help reduce the number of bacteria that could be causing dry eye symptoms.
  • Oral steroids. Steroids help reduce the amount of inflammation that can be found on the ocular surface, eyelid margins, and periorbital areas.
  • Oral secretagogues. Secretagogues help increase the number of aqueous tears that are a part of the tear film.

At home:

Thermal lid treatments can be performed at home to melt meibomian gland blockages and allow meibum to flow better. We may recommend using a heated eyelid mask and manual massage to melt and express meibum. Heat masks apply consistent heat for longer intervals than other types of warm compresses.

In-office:

In office treatments can alleviate inflammation caused by more severe cases of meibomian gland dysfunction. A combination of treatments may be recommended.

  • LipiFlow. LipiFlow helps treat symptoms of meibomian gland dysfunction. It uses non-invasive heat pulses applied to the eyelids to help melt away blockages in the meibomian glands.
  • MiboFlo. MiboFlo applies consistent heat to the meibomian glands to help treat meibomian gland dysfunction.
  • Intense Pulsed Light Therapy. Intense pulsed light therapy (IPL) helps melt blockages caused by MGD using light instead of heat.
  • Radiofrequency. Radiofrequency (RF) is used by your doctor to help relax and stimulate your skin’s fibroblasts.
  • Blephex. BlephEx removes excess bacteria, biofilm, and bacterial toxins from the eyelids to achieve better lid hygiene.

Speak to an ophthalmologist to see if any of these treatments are right for you.

Vector Eye Centre is proud to offer a wide variety of surgical solutions to treat structural causes of dry eye disease. Surgical treatments offered by the caring hands of our ophthalmologists include:

  • Meibomian gland probing. This is a procedure by which your ophthalmologist opens blocked meibomian glands. These glands are located across the eyelid margin and can be blocked due to meibomian gland dysfunction and blepharitis.
  • Amniotic membrane transplantation. This is a surgical procedure where an amniotic membrane (a thin layer of the placenta) is used to help heal and revitalize your ocular surface. This procedure is used to help treat acute burns or conditions that can scar the cornea.
  • Non-surgical temporary lid closure. This is a procedure that helps your eyes temporarily retain moisture needed to improve ocular healing.
  • Surgical lid tightening. This is a surgical procedure that tightens your eyelids enough to generate secretion of the meibomian gland whenever you blink completely.
  • Surgical lid repositioning. This is a surgical procedure where your eyelid is adjusted and positioned correctly to help the eyelid function properly.
  • Conjunctival surgery. This is done to remove extra folds of conjunctiva to allow the tear film to better flow over your ocular surface.
  • Pterygium surgery. This may be required when your ocular surface has benign growths or bumps. These growths can affect how well your natural tear film lubricates your ocular surface.

Are you having trouble with dry eyes in specific environments or while working on certain tasks?

Depending on your dry eye symptoms and severity, your ophthalmologist may recommend an expansive list of different habitual and environmental changes to help improve ocular comfort. Some of these recommendations may include:

  • Using a humidifier at work or home
  • Altering your blinking cycle (a conscious effort to blink regularly, completely, and consistently). This can help heal your ocular surface, remove debris, and prevent your tears from evaporating too quickly.
  • Performing eyelid massages to help propel meibum onto your ocular surface. Your ophthalmologist will teach you how to perform the massage properly.

Speak to your ophthalmologist about what changes you can make in your life to achieve healthy and comfortable eyes.

Your diet can have a profound effect on how well your eyes produce tears and even the quality of the tears produced. Depending on the severity of your symptoms, your ophthalmologist may recommend a dietary change to combat your symptoms of dry eye disease.

Foods high in essential nutrients, vitamins, omega-3s, antioxidants, and anti-inflammatory properties can help with tear production or improve the health of your ocular surface.

Massage, Artificial Tears, Blinking

Dry Eye Treatments

Request a Dry Eye Consultation

Evaluation and Treatment Process

Patients undergo a dry eye analysis which includes meibography, lid layer thickness, blinking profile, indirect meibum quality, osmolarity, an in-office dry eye questionnaire, slit lamp exam, and other non-invasive dry eye tests.

We then evaluate eyelid and meibomian gland health (truncation, atrophy, degeneration, shortening, loss), quality of blinking and the tear film, as well as, ocular surface changes. We will review the dry eye questionnaire (for frequency, severity and exacerbating factors of symptoms), and review the current osmolarity. 

Next, we interpret and quantify these changes and offer a targeted thermal lid treatment or blepharospasm-exfoliation treatment as needed. Other non-invasive dry eye testing may also be performed with no extra charge to the patient.
A testing fee is charged to the patient for the dry eye analysis.

The dry eye analysis fee will be included in the thermal lid treatment payment, if a thermal lid treatment is booked within 6 months of the dry eye analysis.

A copy of the meibography can be sent to the referring doctor via encryption. After a patient completes lid thermal treatments, education for ongoing dry eye maintenance is provided.

The patient then returns to their referring Optometrist or Physician for ongoing care and co-management. The co-management fee is sent to the referring Optometrist/Physician.

Request a Dry Eye Disease Consultation

Suffering from dry eye disease? Please request an appointment with us so we can help you achieve comfortable vision.

For other questions unrelated to dry eye symptoms, please click the link for our Contact Information page. We look forward to helping you!

Visit Our Office

Our office is located on the South side of North Hill Mall in the professional building. Please note there is no entrance to our clinic from the mall.

Where to Park?

We offer plenty of free 3-hour parking right outside our clinic, and we are easily accessible from Lion’s Park Station located on 14th Ave. NW.

Our Address

Suite 1705, 1632 14 Ave. NW
Calgary, AB T2N 1M7

Contact Information

Hours of Operations

Monday
8 AM4 PM
Tuesday
8 AM4 PM
Wednesday
8 AM4 PM
Thursday
8 AM4 PM
Friday
8 AM2 PM
Saturday
Closed
Sunday
Closed

Our Services

We offer a variety of refractive surgery options including ICL, Refractive Lens Exchange (RLE), LASIK, and PRK. During ICL and Refractive Lens Exchange an intraocular lens is used to correct your vision. LASIK and PRK use a laser to correct your prescription. We can help you achieve clear vision without the need for glasses or contact lenses.

Refractive Surgery

Cataracts are a common condition that often develops with age. Diabetes, certain medications, and trauma can also increase cataract risk. We offer a variety of advanced cataract surgery and intraocular lens options.

Calgary’s Source for Excellent Cataract Care

We are a comprehensive ophthalmology office treating all types of eye conditions such as glaucoma, eyelid, eye surface, IOL, uveitis, retina problems and more. Our Ophthalmologists offer on-site laser and minor surgery to treat eye diseases.

Comprehensive Ophthalmology

Your cornea, the clear front part of your eye, refracts light entering your eye. When your cornea develops an issue, it can affect your whole vision. We offer a variety of treatments, including cornea transplants, corneal cross-linking, and PTK surgery.

Cornea Surgery & Crosslinking in Calgary

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