Get Personalized Treatment
In the United States, the leading cause of vision impairment and blindness is age-related eye disease. Some of the most common include macular degeneration or cataracts. The quality of your life can be dependent on getting the proper treatment and having a team of professionals who are dedicated to managing your eye disease and improving your vision.
Preventive Self-Care
Before we delve into more serious dry eye treatment options, here are a few simple self-care options that can manage minor cases of dry eye.
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Blink regularly when reading or staring at a computer screen for a long time.
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Make sure there’s adequate humidity in the air at work and at home.
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Wear sunglasses outside to reduce sun and wind exposure. Wraparound glasses are best.
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Take supplements with essential fatty acids as these may decrease dry eye symptoms.
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Drink 8 to 10 glasses of water each day to avoid dehydration.
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Find out if any of your prescriptions have dry eye as a side effect and if so, see if you can take an alternative.
Dry Eye
Dry eye can be a minor irritation at first, but can easily grow into a problem that can keep you from enjoying your hobbies and take a toll on your quality of life. Let’s take a look at dry eye treatments – from simple self-care to innovative prescriptions and therapies – to help you see clearly and comfortably.
What is Dry Eye?
Understanding dry eye will help you determine the best treatment option. Dry eye occurs when a person doesn't have enough quality tears to lubricate and nourish the eye. Tears reduce eye infections, wash away foreign matter, and keep the eye’s surface smooth and clear. People with dry eyes either do not produce enough tears or their tears are poor quality. It’s a common and often chronic problem, especially in older adults.
Dry Eye Treatment Options
Artificial Tears
For mild cases of dry eyes, the best option is over-the-counter eye drops. Here are a few tips for selecting the right one:
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Low viscosity – These artificial tears are watery. They often provide quick relief with little or no blurring of your vision, but their effect can be brief, and sometimes you must use these drops frequently to get adequate relief.
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High viscosity – These are more gel-like and provide longer-lasting lubrication. However, these drops can cause significant blurring of your vision for several minutes. For this reason, high-viscosity artificial tears are recommended at bedtime.
Prescription Dry Eye Treatments
There are several prescriptions that treat dry eye differently. Your eye doctor can advise the best option for your situation.
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Contact Lenses – There are specialty contact lenses that deliver moisture to the surface of the eye. They’re called scleral lenses or bandage lenses.
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Antibiotics– If your eyelids are inflamed, this can prevent oil glands from secreting oil into your tears. Your doctor may recommend antibiotics to reduce inflammation.
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Anti-inflammatory drugs – These are eye drops to control inflammation on the surface of your eyes (cornea) using the immune-suppressing medication cyclosporine (Restasis) or corticosteroids.
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Autologous blood serum drops – For serious dry eye that’s not responding to other treatment, these eyedrops are made with a sample of your blood. It’s processed to remove the red blood cells and then mixed with a salt solution.
Dry Eye Procedures
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Punctal Plugs – Tear ducts can be plugged with tiny silicone plugs to reduce tear loss. By partially or completely closing your tear ducts, it can keep your tears from leaving your eye too quickly.
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Meibomian Gland Expression- Gentle expression of the oil glands in the eyelids to remove old oil and debris, so that your glands can express new oil.
You don’t have to suffer from the symptoms of dry eye. Talk to your optometrists at Pinnacle Vision Care about dry eye treatment options designed to address the underlying cause of your condition.
Glaucoma
If you’ve been diagnosed with glaucoma, you’re probably already familiar with the typical options in glaucoma treatment – eye drops, laser treatment or traditional surgery. While these are certainly effective, especially when glaucoma is diagnosed early, researchers have been working hard to offer new glaucoma treatments. Their goal is not only to improve outcomes but also reduce the treatment’s side effects and frequency of use.
What is the Goal of Glaucoma Treatment?
Before we dive into the new options, it’s important to understand the goal of any glaucoma treatment. At present, glaucoma is not curable. However, treatment can significantly slow the progression of the disease. Glaucoma damages your eye's optic nerve. Extra fluid builds up in the front part of your eye (cornea), which increases the pressure in your eye. Reducing this pressure is the primary objective of any glaucoma treatment. This is often referred to as intraocular pressure or IOP.
What are the Limitations of Standard Glaucoma Treatments?
Eye drops for glaucoma treatment seem like an easy option but there are several challenges that can reduce its effectiveness. It can be difficult to get all the medicine in the eye, especially for older adults with less of a steady hand. In addition, since it must be applied daily, individuals may forget. Since the drops have no perceivable benefit because early stages of glaucoma have no symptoms, patients might make it a lower priority which is understandable since it may also have unpleasant side effects like burning, red eyes.
Beyond eye drops, laser surgery is a less invasive option. The laser opens clogged tubes and drains fluid. It can take a few weeks to see the full results. If laser surgery or drugs don’t relieve your eye pressure, you may need a more traditional operation. You would have to go into the hospital and will need a few weeks to heal and recover. Although usually effective, glaucoma surgery can make you more likely to get cataracts later on. It can also cause eye pain or redness, infection, inflammation, or bleeding in your eye.
What are Recent Advances in Glaucoma Treatment?
Alternatives or Improvements to Eye Drops
The Glaucoma Research Foundation reported several new developments on the horizon. These technologies focus on reducing patient error in applying eye drops which would make the medication more effective and improve the quality of life for the patient. Here are some of the products underway:
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A polymer, like a contact lens, would contain the drug; it would sit under the eyelid and release the medication over several months
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Microneedles would inject medication into a specific spot to be most effective
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Implantable extended-release devices using engineered highly-precise microparticles and nanoparticles
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Drops that allow the medication to get into the eye more easily
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Tear duct plugs that release medication
In addition, people with glaucoma who take more than one eye drop per day are beginning to see those medications available as a single, combined eye drop. New products include Cosopt (timolol and dorzolamide), Combigan (timolol and brimonidine) and Simbrinza (brinzolamide and brimonidine).
Minimally Invasive Glaucoma Surgery
Minimally Invasive Glaucoma Surgery (MIGS) procedures are small cuts or micro-incisions through the cornea that cause the least amount of trauma to the surrounding tissues. Doctors implant a tiny device to allow fluid to drain from the eye, reducing internal pressure. Some devices (iStent) are implanted during cataract surgery. Cataract surgery alone lowers pressure, but the combination of both is more effective and can lower the need for medication.
These new techniques minimize tissue scarring, allowing for the possibility of traditional glaucoma surgery in the future if needed. They also give doctors the opportunity to treat patients earlier and more safely than older surgeries.
Monitoring Eye Pressure
An easy, accurate way to measure eye pressure is critical to monitoring the progress of glaucoma and adjusting treatment as needed. For patients that require more frequent testing of their eye pressure, there’s now an at-home tonometer called iCare HOME. There’s no puff of air and no eye drops. The patient can easily share the information with their eye doctor.
If you have a glaucoma diagnosis, you can feel confident that your glaucoma treatment options are only going to improve in the years ahead. Although the disease is not curable, it is very manageable with the right treatment.
Diabetic Eyecare
Eye disease that is caused by diabetes is currently the number one cause of blindness and vision loss. Due to the increased risk in diabetic patients, doctors recommend that people over 30 with diabetes get an annual dilated eye exam. Diabetic patients under 30 should get this exam five years after they have been diagnosed.
Diabetic retinopathy is a condition that is caused by damage to the retina. Patients that have diabetes may also have experienced extended periods of time where their blood sugar was elevated. The high levels of blood sugar damage the retina’s walls which leave them susceptible to leaking. When fluid accumulates in the retina or macula, it causes vision loss.
To make these matters worse, if prolonged high blood sugar levels are seen again, the retina will be oxygen-depleted. This causes the abnormal growth of new blood vessels. This condition is called neovascularization. This blood vessel type is weak and prone to leaking. As these blood vessels leak, they introduce blood into the eye. Excessive bleeding into the eye can cause blindness.
Diabetic Treatment?
While a healthy diet and exercise can be beneficial to your optical health, diabetic retinopathy is a condition that is caused by damage to the retinal wall. While this damage can sometimes be corrected, simple diet changes won’t reverse the effects.
It is essential to catch the condition in the earlier stages to reduce the effects. This can also help patients understand the importance of monitoring their blood sugar so that repeat events can be limited. Treatment options are even more successful when diabetic retinopathy is caught early. These options include vitrectomy, scatter photocoagulation and focal photocoagulation.
During both scatter, and focal photocoagulation the doctor will use lasers to help alleviate the condition. The lasers make small burns on the retina aimed at the blood vessels. These burns will help to seal the blood vessels to prevent more leakage and stop them from growing larger.
When using scatter photocoagulation, hundreds of small burns are made in a specific pattern during two additional appointments. Scatter coagulation should be used on patients who do not have advanced diabetic retinopathy.
Focal photocoagulation specifically targets the leaking blood vessels that are in the macula. Unfortunately, this procedure is not aimed to correct the blurry vision associated with diabetic retinopathy, but it does stop it from progressing further. Once the retina has detached, neither form of photocoagulation can be used.
Vitrectomy is a surgery that helps to remove scar tissue and/or the fluid that is clouded with blood that has been leaked into the eye. This operation is the most successful when performed before the disease has progressed too far. When the operation only targets removing the fluid, success rates are very high for the procedure. When the procedure also aims to reattach the retina, the failure rate is around 50%.
Macular Degeneration
Protecting Your Sight: Understanding Macular Degeneration
Macular degeneration is one of the leading causes of vision loss, especially in adults over 60. At our office, we prioritize early detection and proactive care — because your central vision is essential for reading, driving, recognizing faces, and living independently.
What Is Macular Degeneration?
Macular degeneration affects the macula — the part of the retina responsible for your sharpest, most detailed vision. There are two main types:
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Dry AMD, the most common form, develops gradually as the macula thins over time.
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Wet AMD is less common but more aggressive, involving abnormal blood vessels that can cause rapid vision loss.
Are You at Risk?
You may be more likely to develop AMD if you:
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Are age 60 or older
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Have a family history of macular degeneration
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Smoke or have smoked in the past
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Have high blood pressure or cardiovascular conditions
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Spend time outdoors without UV protection
How We Help Protect Your Macula
During your comprehensive eye exam, we use advanced retinal imaging to check the health of your macula. If you’re at risk or showing early signs of AMD, we offer several ways to help slow progression and protect your vision:
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Specially formulated bio-available vitamins available in-office, including the 3 photopigments essential to macular function
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UV protection tips and lens options to reduce further damage
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In-home monitoring with ForeseeHome, an FDA-approved device that allows early detection of wet AMD from the comfort of your home
Trusted Local Partnerships for Advanced Care
If you ever need additional treatment, such as injections or specialty evaluation, we partner closely with experienced retina specialists right here in Sebring, Avon Park, Lake Placid, and Wauchula. You’ll never feel like you’re navigating this alone — we stay connected with your specialist to ensure seamless, coordinated care.
Be Proactive, Stay Independent
There’s no cure yet for macular degeneration, but early diagnosis and regular follow-up can help preserve your vision for years to come. We’re here to help you every step of the way — from prevention to advanced care, and everything in between.
