Based on a talk delivered to the Glaucoma Support Group on Saturday 17th April 1999 by Director of Pharmacy, Geoffrey E. Davies , B Pharm, FSHP, MPS .
Summary prepared June 1999 for these Web pages.
This is important to prevent infective organisms (bacteria, fungi, viruses etc) contaminating the contents of the dropper bottle and infecting the eye.
Always make sure hands have been washed before handling the dropper bottle even if you have been doing work within the house.
Wash hands before and after using drops or ointments
Always keep the tip of the bottle or tube away from your eye and never allow the tip to touch your fingers or any other surface
Always put the caps back on bottles and tubes after use
This will minimise side effects in the rest of the body and promote increased action locally in the eye.
With the eyes closed, apply gentle pressure with a finger to the inside corner of the eye near the nose for 2 to 3 minutes.
Excess blinking after instillation will result in the tears and the eye medication being pumped out of the eye, reducing the action in the eye and increase drug side effects in the body.
Keep the eye closed for two or three minutes after administration as above
Eye can only absorb 10 to 20 microlitre and the standard eye drop size is much greater at 30 - 60 microlitre from most standard bottles.
Instilling TWO drops of the one medication immediately after each other results in:
no better action in eye
increase side effects of the drug in the body
When using more than one eye drop medication at a time, separate them by 5
minutes:
maximise absorption in the eye before second drops instilled
reduce side effects in rest of body.
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