What is Dry Eye Disease?

Dry eye disease is more than having occasional dry eyes after a late night or when you are exposed to dusty, windy environments. It is a chronic disease that is caused when the eyes do not produce sufficient tears or when the tears that are produced evaporate too quickly. This can cause constant symptoms of eye watering (strange but true), itching, burning, light sensitivity, redness and other discomforts.

The first step in the treatment of dry eye is proper diagnosis. Believe it or not, there are different types of dry eye. You must know which type you have before spending money on the wrong treatment or artificial tears. Our team can help you determine what is causing your symptoms:

• Evaporative Dry Eye: caused by blockage to the eyelid glands (meibomian glands) which leads to a shortage of oil on the surface of the tears and quicker-than-normal tear evaporation
• Aqueous Dry Eye: occurs when the lacrimal glands do not produce enough tears

At Vision Quest, we are proud to offer our patients a revolutionary method to identify early signs of dry eye disease: InflammaDry®.

What is InflammaDry?

InflammaDry is the first and only test to identify elevated levels of an inflammatory marker, MMP-9 protein, which can point to early signs of dry eye disease that might be overlooked by other testing methods. This is a quick, in-office, 4-step process that provides an early diagnosis of dry eye, allowing patients to potentially reduce the risk of dry eye complications in the future.

Our team will take tear fluid samples from the inside lining of your lower eyelid. Results of the InflammaDry test in Dallas are ready within 10 minutes so we can share the findings with you right away.

To learn more about diagnosing dry eye in Dallas, contact us today to schedule an eye exam.