New dry eye therapy

Posted , 4 users are following.

I've had dry eyes many years before I had PMR. It started after lasik eye surgery and eyelid surgery. The problem was well controlled with the prescription eye drops which increased tear production. With pred It seemed to get much worse. Yesterday, at the ophthalmologist testing showed it affected my vision. The doctor offered a new therapy with my own blood serum used as drops. He took 4 vials of my own blood, cerntrifuged it down to sera my and made my drops. I just started it today. 

Has anyone else used this?

0 likes, 5 replies

5 Replies

  • Posted

    An article from 2014 in an opthalmologic magazine about a Cochrane review of autologous serum treatment says:

    "Review of autologous serum for dry eye finds more research needed

    by Vanessa Caceres EyeWorld Contributing Writer      

    Inconsistent research made definitive conclusions difficult.

    In the quest to treat patients with severe dry eye, some ophthalmologists use autologous serum drops. Just how effective are the drops in treating dry eye? A review article published last year in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews took a closer look at this topic. Ultimately, they concluded that more research needs to be done."

    I can't give you the direct link - but I have quoted enough for you to find the report and read it for yourself. It may help - but basically there isn't a lot of good evidence to say it does.

     

    • Posted

      My ophthalmologist suggested I visit the dry eye forums and hear the participants' experience with this. I started yesterday and I do feel better today. The dryness is especially bad after the steroid inhalers. I do no know whether beta agonists as well affect this. I am hoping, once I taper down and also need less inhalers the dryness will lessen. Since I am on the Vit D my ventolin needs are down to 1/3 of my previous doses.

    • Posted

      I'll be very interested to hear how you get on - as the article says, it probably isn't the sort of thing that is going to get a serious study done until a load of people have used it and found it helps. If it does - it could have a place in autoimmune disease management. Dry eye seems very common, never mind the Sjogren's patients who really siffer.

    • Posted

      He mentioned those patients were really helped. The idea is to nourish the dry cornea with the person's own serum.

  • Posted

    I have that darn Dry Eye too. All of you - Thank you for the information. At least, there is the possibilty of some hope. I like to know someone is trying to figure it out. Just got diagnosed with my left eye having a cataract. Probably because of the Prednisone. Well, we can't go w/o Prednisone so it is what it is!

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