Dry eye: IPL treatment

26/04/2024

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Dry eye is a chronic pathology that consists of a lack of tear quantity and/or a deterioration in their quality, producing inflammation of the surface of the eye. Tears are essential for lubricating the surface of the eye, providing nutrients, and protecting against infection. In this episode we talk with Dr. Rubén Delgado about some basic questions about dry eye and the treatments we offer at Barraquer.

• What is dry eye?
• What types of dry eyes exist?
• Why does this pathology occur?
• What can be done to prevent it?
• What treatments do we offer at Barraquer?
• Why is intense pulsed light treatment so interesting?
• How is the treatment performed?
• After IPL treatment, can the patient lead a completely normal life?
• If a family member suffers from dry eye, is there a chance that I will have it too?
• Can patients diagnosed with dry eye lead a completely normal life?
• What recommendations can we make to patients with dry eye to improve their daily lives?

In the episode Dry eye: treatment with IPL #13 of our podcast Descansa la vista (Rest Your Sight) we spoke with Dr. Rubén Delgado, ophthalmologist at the Barraquer Ophthalmology Centre, to resolve doubts about dry eye and provide the necessary information to make a good diagnosis and offer the best treatment in each case. He also tells us what intense pulsed light treatment consists of and how it is performed.

Why does this pathology occur?

Dry eye, in general, is multifactorial. There are several factors that influence its appearance: age, sex, immunological factors, or different types of pathologies can cause different types of dry eye. There is water-deficient dry eye, that is, patients who have a low amount of tears;  evaporative dry eye, in which the tear quality is not good enough and there is also mixed dry eye: patients who have a small amount of tears and these are of poor quality.

What can be done to prevent it?

The usual symptoms of dry eye (gritty sensation, red eye, heaviness, etc.) can be corrected with artificial tears. On the other hand, it is also important to try to avoid these symptoms, knowing what factors can cause them: air conditioners, heaters, very windy environments, very intense heat, etc. Patients with dry eyes can avoid these environments to avoid suffering from dry eye symptoms as much.

What does intense pulsed light treatment consist of?

Treatment with intense pulsed light helps us improve the quality of the tears produced by the patient himself, that is, the one that is constantly smearing the tear film and is the one we are interested in improving the most. What pulsed light does is reduce the inflammation in the glands located on the edge of the eyelid, which are responsible for generating fat. Especially in patients with evaporative dry eye, this fat is more solidified and with pulsed light what we achieve is to reduce inflammation of the gland in question a little, achieving a more liquid fat.

We invite you to listen to this podcast episode to address common questions about dry eyes. You can also can send us your eye health concerns via Instagram, Twitter or Facebook using the hashtag #DescansaLaVista so that we can resolve them in future episodes.