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IPL Dry Eye
Treatment

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Advanced Eye Care

Intense Pulsed Light for Dry Eye

Serving Rancho Santa Margarita, Coto De Caza, and surrounding communities since 1991!

Your meibomian glands control the lipids in the eye, called meibum, which combine with oil, mucus and water to lubricate your eyes. Meibomian Gland Dysfunction, MGD, occurs when the meibomian glands fail to provide enough meibum. This can cause the eyes to feel dry and uncomfortable. MGD causes 80% of dry eye.

Those with dry eye may be interested to know that intense pulsed light, IPL, can be helpful in alleviating symptoms. This is considered to be a ground-breaking treatment. When combined with meibomian gland expression, most patients’ symptoms improved more than 50 percent. These results are based on a study performed by the Mayo Clinic, and published in 2016.

The Procedure

At the first treatment, slit-lamp examination and meibography is performed. Patient’s skin is evaluated using Fitzpatrick grading and a test patch is performed. Adjustments are made after assessing how well the light energy is absorbed and by skin response. After administering IPL, we will express oil from the glands, which restores the normal oil flow in the tear film. It is generally recommended patients undergo an initial series of four IPL treatments, performed 4 weeks apart. This ensures long-term success in treating both chronic dry eye syndrome and Meibomian Gland Dysfunction.

Depending on the severity of your dry eye condition, occasional maintenance treatments following the initial series of IPL treatments may be required. It is not unusual to combine IPL treatments with other dry eye therapies in order to optimize effectiveness and promote healing.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Dedicated to Providing You With Expert Vision Care.

What are common symptoms of dry eye?

Scratchy sensations, itching and burning, redness, watery eyes, blurry vision.

Are there different types of dry eye?

The two major types of DED are aqueous tear deficiency (ATD) and evaporative dry eye. The latter, which is linked to meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD), is the most common form and results in your tears evaporating too quickly.

What happens if you don’t treat dry eye?

Your tears play an important part of protecting your eyes and your vision. Untreated dry eye can lead to corneal scarring or increased eye infections. Additionally, discomfort or pain from dry eye can lead to poor sleep quality and mood disorders.

Does dry eye affect women more often then men?

Dry eye results from a variety of causes, but aging is the single highest factor. Women suffer from dry about twice as frequently as men, often because of hormonal changes, certain medications, wearing contact lenses and using eye makeup.

What treatment options do you offer for dry eye?

The first task in evaluating dry eye is to determine which type of dry eye you have. Solutions may include artifical tears and warm compresses for mild cases of dry eye, sometimes medications can be used to increase tear production, other treatments are designed to unblock meibomian glands so they may increase meibum secretion. Underlying causes of dry eye like inflammation or rosacea are treated using intense pulsed light (IPL) therapy. We offer a variety of treatments to best address your particular needs.

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Patient Experiences

Discover What Our Clients Have to Say.

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A thoughtful and knowledge front office staff. My doctor took alot of time to help me understand what changes are occurring in my eyes. I really appreciated that because at my age 62, there are lots of changes. Thank you!

Katherine Barton
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The office is clean - Staff Friendly - Doctors knowledgeable - Happy with treatment for Eye Issue. Would recommend Kathleen Anderson & her associates.

Shawn Gatto
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Always thorough and thoughtful! Easy to get an appointment and always efficient with time too. I don’t think there are any negatives. Thanks again Doc!

Todd Hauck
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My visit was painless and super easy. I recently obtained vision benefits through my company. After my first visit for the first time in 15 years, I signed some paperwork and I went back and had my eyes checked. Buying glasses for astigmatism has never been easier. Tried on several pairs and bought two. It was a great visit.

Alex Holguin
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