Which eye drop to use first

You should wait 5 minutes after putting in the artificial tears before starting your glaucoma eye drops. If you do choose to use these formulations, make sure you wait 5 minutes after your last glaucoma drop goes in and be sure to use the gel or ointment last. And as always, tell your ophthalmologist all of the eye drops that you are using, including over the counter products such as artificial tears. Bring your eye drops with you to every appointment. This way your eye doctor can make note of exactly what drops you are using, including which formulation, and any confusion about your eye drop regimen and schedules can be easily sorted out.

Learning how to properly instill eye drops takes time and practice. You can use a bottle of artificial tears to practice so as not to waste your glaucoma medications. Yvonne Ou, MD, is a board certified ophthalmologist who specializes in glaucoma, including medical, laser and surgical therapies; cataract evaluation and treatment including combined cataract and glaucoma surgery; glaucoma filtering and implant surgery; and newer procedures.

Back to Expert Advice. Expert Advice. Learn helpful tips and tricks to properly apply eye drops for glaucoma. Keep It Clean! Article Glaucoma: Essential Facts Publication. About the author. Yvonne Ou, MD. Full bio. Help find a cure.

Donate Now. Each of the two treatment groups received one drop of antibiotic every 5 minutes. They were cultured before application of the antibiotic drops. The culture was repeated at 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour and 2 hours after instillation of the last drop. The control group was cultured at corresponding time points. Colony counts were performed after incubating the culture plates for 48 hours. Katz said. The ofloxacin group experienced no statistically significant difference from control until it reached the 2-hour time point.

The relatively slow effect of ofloxacin in reducing colony counts is consistent with in vitro kill curve data, Dr. It was highly statistically significant, compared with the control, Dr. Researchers are not only choosing particular combinations of quinolones but are attempting to find the most effective methods of application.

Eric D. Donnenfeld, MD, Henry D. Perry, MD, and Robert W. Snyder, MD, PhD, have conducted research into the penetration of quinolones into deeper stromal tissues.

They attempt to dehydrate the cornea and then add quinolones, so that the stromal pump action pulls the drugs more deeply into corneal tissue. They dehydrated the corneas of 30 rabbits. After 2 minutes, they rehydrated the tissue with either four drops of Ciloxan, four drops of Ocuflox or four drops of Tobrex tobramycin; Alcon. The controls were hydrated with balanced salt solution, and then 1 minute later they were given the four drops of Ciloxan, Ocuflox or Tobrex.

An hour later, the corneas were excised and digested. They assayed the corneal tissue and found that in the hydrated state, they had better penetration again with Ocuflox than with ciprofloxacin. Snyder said. Issue: September 1, Read next.

September 01, Receive an email when new articles are posted on. Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on. Call for Appointment All Locations Leawood Office You can pull down your lower lid to create a little pocket for the drops to go into. If you're having trouble, try lying down - get gravity on your side! After the drop goes in, keep your eye closed for about thirty seconds to help it absorb properly. If you blink excessively, the drop will not get absorbed.

If you place your index finger along the inner corner of your eye after putting the drops in, this closes off the tear duct and keeps the drop in the eye longer. Effectiveness of the drop will be enhanced and side effects will be reduced - the drop will stay in your eye instead of going to the rest of your body. One drop is more than can fit into your eye, so a second drop will just run down your cheek.

Otherwise, you will just be rinsing the first drop out with the second drop and you will reduce the effectiveness of your medications. This can be dangerous. For example, if you have an infection and you put in an old steroid drop, the infection may get much worse. Many times it will roll down onto your cheek and that is okay as long as you felt it hit the surface of your eye.

We have three tips for you to help you get your eye drops in more effectively and save on medication costs and to increase the effectiveness of your eye drops.

The first is to create a habit of when to put in the eye drops. So if you're using twice-a-day eye drops, if there's something you do twice a day with regularity that is spaced out throughout the day such as wash your face, then keep your eye drops right near the sink, so that you always remember to take them at that point in time.

The other thing is if you're not sure you're getting your eye drops in. For many drops you can keep them in the refrigerator and that will cool down the drop so that when you put it in your eye, you'll feel it hit the surface of your eye.