please please help. terrified to sleep.

[Megadodger]

Had a grey line down my eye for the past couple days so I went to my eye doctor. He noticed that my eyes were incredibly dry and slightly inflamed from that. He suggested theratears and I agreed instantly. Because I had homework to do I went home and my mom went out to pick some up for me. She came home with these pills and told me I'm supposed to puncture the pill and put a drop in my eye. After doing this three times and finally getting my vision back.. I read the instructions and warnings.. And turn put my mom lied! I have been putting this theratears pill fluid in my eye every two hours ssince about 2pm.. Now, is this bad? Will anything bad happen?

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

achilla is absolutely correct. There is nothing in the pill that is harmful to the eye but one would wonder abut a mother and child that stick holes in pills and put them in their eyes without reading the label.

Always read the label and prescriving information on medicine before taking.

JCH MD

[achillea]

Theratears comes in two forms:  One is an over-the-counter eyedrop that you, obviously, drop into your eyes.  The other is a nutritional supplement in the form of pills that you swallow, which apparently is what you put into your eyes.

The ingredients of the pills are Vitamin E, Omega-3 Fatty Acids (From Fish Oil), Flaxseed Oil, Mixed Tocopherol Concentrate 20 mg, and Purified Water.

I'm not a doctor, but it doesn't look to me as though there's anything in this mix that's particularly harmful to your eyes--especially if your eyes are actually feeling better (!) after you've been doing this for a day.

I think the best thing to do would be to (a) quit putting the pill contents in your eyes, (b) read the label as Dr. Hagan says and take the pills by mouth, and (3) have your mom buy some Theratear eye drops for daily use.

If your eyes do not feel worse tomorrow as a result of mistakenly putting the pills in your eyes, then you probably don't need to worry.  If they do feel worse tomorrow, call the eye doc and tell him what happened.  But it's probably not a big deal.

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

Read the label the "pills" came in. Likely this is the oral pill meant to be taken internally for chronic dry eyes.   Read the article on this page about dry eyes that I wrote.

JCH MD