Panel takeaways: pearls of practice for dry eye disease

In the final segment of a 5-part video series, Marjan Farid, MD, of the University of California, Irvine; Karolinne Rocha, MD, PhD, of the Medical University of South Carolina; Nathan Lighthizer, OD, of the Northeastern State University Oklahoma College of Optometry; and Cory Lappin, OD, the Dry Center of Ohio, give important practice takeaways for clinicians who treat patients with dry eye disease.

Watch from the beginning; go to part 1.

Marjan Farid, MD:

We’re looking forward to continuing to move this field of ocular surface disease forward. Any final thoughts?

Nathan Lighthizer, OD:

Just keep seeing those dry eye patients, keep tackling them. You’re not going to cure all of them. It’s okay to not have every patient completely asymptomatic. Follow them up, manage them, care for them, and you’re going to have happy dry eye patients.

Cory Lappin, OD:

To that point, we’ve all mentioned we have so many good options right now, and don’t suffer from analysis paralysis on this. Choose something and start somewhere. That’s the big thing right now, because it’s a great time, but some people are overwhelmed with all the options. Just choose one. The drum I keep beating is there’s only one wrong answer and it’s to do nothing. Just start somewhere, dive in, you’re going to learn more. Just if you see your dry patients, just choose something and run with it and they’re going to be grateful for it.

Karolinne Rocha, MD, PhD:

Remember that you can combine different therapies, because understanding that cascade is so important, because, again, we have a lot of great options that can help our patients.

Marjan Farid, MD:

Perfect. Thank you again for joining me and my amazing colleagues here today, and we hope this has been educational for you all.