Tear duct plugs as they are known are good for only one form of dry eyes called aqueous deficiency where there are no tears at all. The other form waters frequently (lipid deficiency) and plugs not help. Problem with plugs is they fall out and rarely stay in more than several months. Rare anyone to be too sensitive to restasis. My wife and I have been on restasis for many years with fabulous results. restasis works with both forms of dry eyes. Many people have stinging with restasis for several weeks which can be helped by using steroid drops for a couple of weeks. there is a new medication that works like restasis called Xidra it is supposed to kick in faster (3-4 months) than restasis (4-6 months) but has not been shown to be better than restasis and is more costly. Read the section on dry eyes on my blog page.