Blepharitis Specialist
Do you experience itchy, gritty eyes which are either too watery or too dry?
At Optomeyes Opticians we also provide expert advice on dry eye and blepharitis management. The symptoms of both of these can be so subtle as to be missed by patient (or thought of as normal) to being very red, crusty and irritable. We have the solution, be it lid scrubs, artificial tear drops, lacrimal syringing or punctual plugs. All of these treatments are NOT readily provided at other practices in this area but after 20 years of watching the patients suffer and the problem become all the more common our principal Optometrist felt it was time to tackle it. No longer do our patients leave feeling no relief due to the wrong treatment plan given. With short scheduled visits to the practice we can treat, manage and sometimes resolve the conditions. If not resolved then we prescribe a much more manageable system for home use in between visits.
We can diagnose the 3 different categories of blepharitis. This is caused by an inflammatory reaction at the base of our eyelashes, from different sources. It leads to red, swollen, itchy eyelids in its worst grade and can be very persistent if not chronic. The correct diagnosis and management is vital to the patients on going comfort. In the severe and thankfully not so common cases where the lids are attacked by the demodex bug then we have the innovative ‘Blephex’ tool (a much more thorough way to lid scrub) to treat at regular intervals in the practice.
In addition we will find the likely source of your dry eye (again this can be for many different reasons) and prescribe the correct treatment of the multitude of options to solve these persistent symptoms. The quality of our tear film is affected by health, age, medication and environmental factors such as prolonged computer use. The symptoms can be as subtle as feeling gritty eyes to feeling a sharp stabbing twinge on the eye surface. I regularly have people complain about these symptoms which a lot of us pass off as normal tired eyes but it can be resolved so simply by the correct type of drops or even hot compresses.
We have the materials to tackle blocked tear ducts in the watery eye and place plugs in the tear ducts in the dry eye. These procedures are quick painless and the results can be long lasting. Not all of these treatments are covered by NHS so there will be occasions where there is a professional fee applied.
