I spy, with my little eye, dry eye. Above my first video diary entry of my RF (radio frequency) journey.
So a little about me. I suffer from dry eye and have for years. I clean along my lids morning and night, try to stay well hydrated, and eat well.
I originally had LASIK many years ago because my eyes were so dry, my contacts would either fog up or just pop out. I could never wear anything comfortably.
Now I still suffer from dry eye. Warm compresses didn’t really help and let’s be honest I used it two nights in a row and decided it was too much effort. I also don’t like putting drops in my eyes.
When patients mentioned eye dryness like most doctors I recommended lid scrubs, warm compresses, artificial tears but those helped very minimally for dryness. I will say the cleaning along the lids every morning and night with a face cleaner does do wonders for making my eyes feel more awake, less sticky, and I end up with fewer crusties, so I am a big fan of that.
I prescribed Xiidra and Restasis but those don’t really fix the underlying problem. You are on the drops for life.
In my search for something better for myself, my team (they all have dry eyes as well), and my patients I went down the rabbit hole.
That’s how I found IPL (Intense Pulse Light) and RF (Radio Frequency). The technology that we use in the office today was originally FDA approved for the reduction of fine lines and wrinkles. So really nice bonus, you fix your dry eye and your wrinkles! They found people noticed improvement in their eye dryness and now it is used in optometry and ophthalmology with a special protocol for the eyes.
IPL was also originally developed as a photofacial that reduces redness and evens out the complexion. Well those blood vessels that caused the redness were also causing inflammation. So they started using it around the eye to reduce inflammation along the eyelid margins and it reduced the symptoms of eye dryness as well.
I thought that I would document how my own treatments were going and how my eyes feel so patients can get an idea of what to expect. My SPEED score is a 15. The SPEED Questionnaire is assessment that gives others that can’t feel what you feel an idea of how comfortable or uncomfortable your eyes are. Just Google “SPEED Questionnaire dry eye” and you can take one yourself. Anything above 8 means you would probably benefit from some treatment.
I had my first treatment of RF May 25, 2022. I did only RF because my skin tone is too dark for IPL. The IPL we have can only treat up to Fitzpatrick Skin Type III. If you are wondering what Fitzpatrick Skin Type you are, search “Fitzpatrick Skin Type test” and you can answer a few questions and find out.
Immediately after treatment I used the Epionce Enriched Firming Mask and Epionce Ultra Shield SPF 50. If you want to find them click here. I really loved them. I can tell that my skin feels good.
It can take several sessions and up to 4 to 6 weeks after the last session to feel the full effects. I was pretty surprised when I noticed a difference immediately. Especially since I was stressed out on training day and didn’t really drink a lot of water. I was expecting my eyes to feel not so good.
However, late at night I like to watch TV on my phone in my room and I noticed that my eyes didn’t feel super gritty and dried out. It was a marked improvement. It was by no means perfect but it was a noticeable change for the better.
I’m looking forward to seeing how they feel after treatment 2. For my treatments I only treated around the eye and on the brow. I didn’t treat on the actual eyelids as I would do for patients. I treat on the eyelids I will have an eye shield put in and express the glands as I do it.
I wanted to see how effective it would be if I didn’t use that extra step since there are some patients that are a bit adverse to having anything in the eye. It’s nice to know there is still a pretty marked difference.
