Restasis eye drops used daily can help people with dry eyes, particularly when over the counter and prescription artificial tears no longer do the job or bring relief. Even though artificial tears can bring some relief, they aren't cures for the problem and eventually the patient has to increase the number of times they use the artificial drops throughout the day. Restasis can help the patient develop their own natural tears making artificial tears no longer necessary.
Dry scratchy eyes can occur for a number of reasons. It might come from allergies, Lasik surgery, medications, aging, eye disease or other medical conditions. There are two main causes for drying of the eyes, the quantity or the quality of the tears. If you don't produce an ample amount of tears, you'll end up with dry eyes. If the tears don't contain the correct balance of all the components, you'll end up again with the same drying of the eyes but for a different reason.
Tears have three layers. If you don't have enough mucin, your tears won't spread across the eye and leave your eyes dry. The thickest layer of the tear, the aqueous, is the water and the lipid or fatty substance in the tears prevents the too rapid of evaporation of the aqueous. If you're missing that element, you'll also have dry eyes. Dry eyes, however may be caused by the swelling of the punctum, the holes in the upper and lower lids. Once swollen, there's no path for the tears to drain. Simply not enough tear production might also be a problem causing drying of the eyes.
If you have symptoms of dry eyes, your doctor may test you to see if they can find the cause. There are a number of tests and each one indicates a different approach. However, if the problem comes from too little tear production, then the doctor might recommend Restasis eye drops for daily use.
Restasis eye drops work for those who already use artificial tears and or tried punctual plugs and showed no relief. Sometimes, the lack of production comes from an inflammatory cell entering the lacrimal gland and it creates inadequate production. This is where Restasis daily eye drops help. Restasis works as an immunomodulator to suppress the potential of the inflammatory cells and boost the production of tears from your eyes by reducing the swelling.
The generic name for Restasis is cyclosporine ophthalmic. While the daily drops don't cause your production to increase overnight, many people find that within three months they notice they need less artificial tears, if any, and their eyes no longer have the gravely feeling so common when you have dry eyes.
A study published in 2008 by Dr. Perry, Dr. Solomon and Dr. Donnenfeld in the "Archives of Ophthalmology" showed that Restasis eye drops for daily use help relieve the symptoms of dry eyes no matter what stage the patient was. However, one conclusion was that patients that began the treatment of daily Restasis eye drops earlier in the disease of dry eyes, the better the overall results with the treatment.