Tearcare ®

What is Dry Eye? 

Dry Eye is a common disease affecting vision quality and eye comfort. Symptoms of Dry Eye can vary widely from patient to patient. People with Dry Eye may experience one or more of the following symptoms: 

• Dry, gritty, or itchy sensation
• Stinging
• Irritation
• Light sensitivity
• Visual fluctuation
• Watery eyes

At Total Eye Care, we use a number of different technologies to determine whether you may be experiencing Dry Eye and to better understand your symptoms. Dry Eye is a serious condition that can dramatically affect your vision and your eye health.

What causes Dry Eye? 

Dry eye can be influenced by a number of factors related to environment and health that determine tear quality. 

Tears have 3 layers:

• a mucus layer,
• an aqueous (watery) layer, and
• a lipid (oily) layer.

If there’s an imbalance in these layers, your vision and comfort of your eyes may be affected. For example, if not enough lipid layer is being produced, tears may evaporate too quickly and cause symptoms ranging from discomfort to extra tear production and poor quality of vision. 

Poor tear quality is often caused by Meibomian Gland Dysfunction (MGD), a condition that impacts the production of oils in your tears. The most common form of MGD is obstruction of the oil producing glands in the eyelids. At Total Eye Care, we will test your tear quality to determine whether MGD is contributing to or causing your dry eye symptoms and create a customized treatment plan to address it.

What is TearCare®?

TearCare® is an innovative Dry Eye procedure that targets the blocked meibomian glands in your eyelids that produce oils to keep your tears healthy. When these glands become blocked or have reduced function, your tears may evaporate more quickly. Unblocking these glands with The TearCare® System can help restore their function and stabilize the tear film. This may improve the quality of tears and reduce symptoms like dryness, gritty or scratchy sensations, blurry vision, and watery eyes. 

At your appointment, we will determine whether your dry eye symptoms are caused by Meibomian Gland Dysfunction (MGD) and would benefit from the use of The TearCare® System.