Red eyes aren’t uncommon, but they’re also not normal. While eye drops may help relieve the issue temporarily, persistent or recurring redness can be a sign of a more serious underlying problem, including glaucoma or dry eye syndrome.
At Advanced Eye Center in Hialeah, Florida, Rodrigo Belalcazar MD, PLLC, specializes in advanced techniques to help his patients with red eyes relieve symptoms and improve their eye health. Here, learn how lasers are used to treat some problems that cause eye redness.
First, it’s important to note that eye redness isn’t a disease. It’s a symptom of an underlying problem. Eye redness often happens when visible parts of your eye are irritated and inflamed. In response, tiny blood vessels dilate, or swell, causing the white part of your eye to look pinkish.
Lots of issues can cause red eyes, including allergies, eye strain, conjunctivitis (pink eye), or other infections. While these causes of red eye can be treated, the therapies they require don’t involve lasers.
Instead, most of these problems can be treated with lubricating or antibiotic eye drops, ointments, or lifestyle changes. Allergies that cause eye redness might be treated with oral medications as well.
Lasers are typically used for problems involving the structure of your eye. For instance, lasers can help treat retinopathy, sealing off leaking blood vessels in or near the light-sensitive retina at the back of your eye.
While retinopathy can cause redness, the bleeding is usually located near the back of your eye where it’s not visible.
Lasers are used to treat glaucoma, a common cause of vision loss. Glaucoma usually happens when the pressure inside your eye builds up. Without treatment, elevated pressure eventually damages your optic nerve, causing permanent vision loss.
In glaucoma treatment, lasers can improve drainage inside your eye, preventing elevated pressure that can lead to nerve damage. Eye redness can be a sign of glaucoma, and while laser treatment can improve redness, it does so by treating the underlying cause — glaucoma.
Also called dry eye syndrome, chronic dry eye typically happens when your tear film isn’t lubricating your eyes effectively, causing irritation, inflammation, and eye redness. Lasers are being used to treat a condition called meibomian gland dysfunction, a common cause of chronic dry eyes.
Your meibomian glands produce oils that help your tears glide across your eye surface and prevent tears from evaporating too quickly. If your glands aren’t functioning properly, you can wind up with dry eyes.
In this situation, we may recommend lasers to gently heat your glands and unclog them, improving gland function, relieving dry eyes, and reducing redness. The American Academy of Ophthalmology notes that lasers can effectively manage dry eyes due to meibomian gland dysfunction.
No matter what’s causing your red eyes, we can find a solution to help relieve the redness and protect your vision. To find out what’s causing your issues, call 305-707-6011 or book an appointment online with Dr. Belalcazar and our team at Advanced Eye Center today.
