Best drops for red eyes
The biggest and most important question to answer when someone has a red eye is ‘what’s the cause?’
Only when there’s an answer to that, can you then look at what treatment should be used, and also how intense that treatment should be.
Let’s be clear: some eyes are red for reasons that if not treated properly, can lead to loss of vision.
Red eyes, especially if accompanied by pain or reduced vision or getting worse rather than better, need to be properly assessed. There’s no way around this, because some of the most important signs in determining the cause of a red eye, such as eye pressure and the presence of inflammation inside the eye, can only be done by proper examination – they can’t be distinguished just by looking in the mirror.
What can cause red eyes?
This isn’t a complete list, but is there to show the variety of different causes, and to give you an idea that the ‘best drop’, or other treatment, really does rely on identifying the cause (or at least ruling some causes out).
- Acute glaucoma
- Trauma, foreign bodies, inturned eyelashes
- Burns – thermal (heat), acid, alkali (lime, caustic), UV (sun, welding flash, snow)
- Bacterial infection
- Viral infection – adenoviral is common, but also herpes (cold sore, shingles) viruses.
- Other infections – fungal, chlamydia, amoeba.
- Allergy – hay fever, dust mite, preservatives in eye drops, ingredients in eye creams/ makeup, deposits on contact lenses.
- Internally caused inflammation – auto-immune conditions.
- Exposure – incomplete lid closure, hot & dry environments, eyelid abnormalities
- Poor tear film quality – dry eye, complications from contact lens wear.
- Lumps and bumps on the lids or surface of the eye – benign and malignant.
- Secondary to other general health conditions, or the medications used to treat them.
What about red-eye (eye whitening) drops?
Some people seem to love ‘red-eye’ drops – drops that contain a vaso-constrictor to shrink the surface blood vessels on the eye, thus causing white eyes and ‘fixing’ the problem. Here are some things to think about regarding these drops:
- They are most effective when they are used least often. For my clients that I’ve ruled out more serious causes of red eye, the only way I recommend these sort of drops is for cosmetic use on special and infrequent occasions. This is because the active agent works best when used rarely. If their eye is red on an ongoing basis requiring more frequent treatment, there are better treatment options.
- The eyes ‘get used to being dropped’. If used regularly, the eyes will go red when they are not used, thus easily starting an ongoing cycle of drops and red eyes that never get better.
- They target the redness of the eyes, not the underlying cause of the redness. Since they don’t work towards a cure, if you rely just on these drops, you might end up subjecting your eyes to a lot more drops than they need.
- They target the redness of the eyes, not the underlying cause of the redness. Since they take the redness out of the eye, you be lulled into thinking you are treating the eyes, when the underlying cause is actually still there, and could be doing damage.
- They target the redness of the eyes, not the underlying cause of the redness. Using treatment that targets the cause will be more effective at getting the eye back to normal long-term.
I hope I’ve been able to lead you to the answer for ‘what’s the best drops for red eyes?’, that being – it depends.
