Throughout her career, Dr. Lisa Smith has seen an uptick in patients suffering from dry eye.
Dry eye is common in the Ranch Cities and beyond, affecting everyone from children to older adults.
One of the biggest risk factors is screen time, which reduces blinking.
“When we are looking far away, we should be blinking at least 20 times a minute,” Smith said. “When we look up closely, it goes down to around four times a minute. We’re just not soothing the ocular surface or spreading our tear film the way we should.”
Dry eye, a condition where the eye doesn’t have enough quality tears to stay lubricated, is one of the most common conditions Smith sees at the eye clinic.
To better address this problem, Pilot Point Family Eye Care has invested in two new pieces of equipment— the OptiLight and OptiLift by Lumenis.
The two work differently but together provide a long-term solution to dry eye.
“The OptiLight and OptiLift work together to improve not only vision, but comfort, ocular surface health and quality of life at the same time,” Smith said. The OptiLight uses a gentle pulse of light to treat inflammation that can clog pores and affect the tear film.
The OptiLift uses a mild electrical current to tighten the eyelids, reduce undereye bags and support the blink mechanism.
Before adding this technology, the clinic mainly relied on eye drops.
Although that method provides short-term relief, they required constant effort from patients and didn’t address the root cause.
By comparison, the OptiLight and OptiLift target the underlying issues, offering a much more long-term solution.
The clinic has had the OptiLight for a year and the OptiLift for only a few weeks, but both are already showing results.
“Patients that were struggling to wear their contact lenses at all can now wear their contacts comfortably all day,” Smith said.
Her message for patients is simple—irritation and redness are not normal.
“We don’t want you to feel your eyes, and we don’t want patients feeling like they have to put drops in all day long,” Smith said. “With this new technology, we can provide tailored solutions that treat the root cause, so patients don’t have to live with discomfort as their normal.”
Theo Johnson/The Post-Signal
