OPTASE Dry Eye Intense Drops - Preservative Free Eye Drops - Multidose Bottle - Step 3 Hydrate - .33 fl oz, 300 Doses

My eye Dr first recommended these eye drops for my dry eye condition. These drops (the purple and white package) have worked better than any other OTC eye drops for dry eye that i’ve tried. I’ve been using for a couple years now. Even if i forget to put in a couple or so mornings, my eyes are not as dry and irritating as they were prior to using the Optase. Very soothing. Can use more than once a day, though initially when i first started on these i did approximately 3 times daily, now once in the morning is all i typically need unless it’s allergy season.

My doctor advised that I use Optase Dry Eye Intense Drops in the morning when I wake up and when I go to bed. That routine has been a very positive effect on my dry eyes.

These are the only dry eye drops that actually soothe my eyes. The consistency is great they lubricate and definitely make my eyes feel better, but not so much that they cloud your vision. It's easy to throw them in my purse and use them anywhere. It's a little expensive but in my case its worth it.

These drops provide immediate comfort for dry eyes and eye strain. I use them with a heated eye mask after work and it gets me through the evening.

I found this helped my dry eye, It's not a silver bullet, but it helps. The problem is the applicator. Putting aside all of the directions about keeping it sterile, it takes some strength to move the product out of the bottle. Because of that I am unable to put only one drop in my eye. It is more viscous than other eyedrops, although not a gel, perhaps this is why I have problems limiting the ammount that goes into my eye. I don't think that is as important as the efficacy of the product. I will purchase it again.

Although, the drops work well for dry eyes for most people, many people complain about the bottle. They complain they need to squeeze so hard to get the first drop out, they frequently get, instead, multiple drops or a stream of drops. Why is this bottle designed this way, you might wonder. The simple answer is that in order to keep drops sterile in a multiuse bottle, the bottle had to be designed to let drops out when you squeeze, but not allow contaminants to be sucked into the bottle when you release. These contaminants could be in the air around you or on the tip of the bottle had it unintentionally touched anything. So the bottle was given a flatter dispensing end to keep the tip out of your eye. It has a blue exit point instead. (More on that latter). Inside there is a one way valve, that stays closed until you use the drops. (See picture) . When you squeeze the bottle, an extremely small flow of liquid opens the valve to allow the drop to exit, but this requires more time to deliver the drop, than a conventional bottle not having the resistance of such a valve. If you impatiently squeeze too hard, two things happen. 1. Multiple drops may be dispensed. 2. Air that is packaged in the bottle above the liquid may be forced out of the bottle along with the drops. (If the bottle his held vertically while instilling the drops, the latter is less likely to happen.) Since the valve works in only one direction, as the bottle empties and no air gets back in, a vacuum is created causing the bottle to collapse, making it more difficult to squeeze out every bit of its contents. Optase says they overfill the bottle beyond the claimed 0.33 ml, to give you a usable 0.33 ml, even though some remains in the totally collapsed bottle. Given the necessity for this design, in order to keep preservative free drops sterile, is there any easier way to dispense drops? Here is my procedure: 1. After removing the cap, be careful to keep the blue tip from touching your face or eye. 2.Imagine the blue tip to be a "bulls eye" upon which you will focus while squeezing the bottle. 3. Sit in an easy chair or sofa and steady your head backwards against the back, so that you are looking at the ceiling. 4. Hold the bottle vertically over your eye so that you can focus on the blue tip. Position the bottle so the "blue bulls eye" is in the center of your view close to your eye. 5. Squeeze the bottle with steady pressure until a drop begins to form on the blue tip. As it begins to form, the blue target becomes somewhat blurred, but continue squeezing until the drop actually drops into your eye. (Be patient while squeezing. It may take up to 15 seconds for the first drop to actually drop.) Squeezing harder will not speed this up and may result in wasted extra drops. After the first drop, the next drop will take less time. 4. After administering the drops, be sure to shake off, in a horizontal direction, any extra liquid that may remain on the blue tip. If you fail to do this before recapping the bottle, that extra drop my cause mold to form inside the cap. 5. Tighten the cap completely after use. All of this seems like a pain, especially if you are accustomed to drop bottles that contain preservatives and don't need bottle of this design. (BTW, Optase is not the only maker of preservative free drops, who use this bottle. Both BioTrue and Systane make preservative free versions in the same bottle.) Unfortunately Optase doesn't give you a choice of daily vials that Systane and BioTrue also offer. If you don't want the hassle, check out BioTrue drops in single use vials. They have nearly the same ingredients as Optase and probably work nearly as well. The downside of single use vials is they are more expensive than a multiuse bottle. Perhaps, because Optase is already so expensive in a preservative-free multiuse bottle, they don't offer single use vials. It could be most people couldn't afford them.

Ever since getting Lasik surgery, I've been struggling to find the right drops for me that allow me to see more clearly, and don't further irritate my eyes, and this seems to be the right mix. I was disappointed in some formulations of Systane and Refresh which came highly reviewed, so this was recommended by my optometrist. There was a little stinging at first, which I heard can be normal with some drops depending on the inactives or base formula but it was temporary and mild. The second use there was none. This is one of the few drops that actually removes extreme dry eye feeling and irritation I've had (feeling like something in your eye you can't remove). Worth the $$. A lot of these drops are pricey so if you're gonna try one try this.

These preservative-free drops provide immediate, long-lasting relief for severe dryness and irritation without triggering chemical sensitivity or stinging the eyes. However, the multi-dose bottle relies on a stiff, stubborn squeeze mechanism that requires an awkward amount of finger pressure to dispense a single drop, and the complex safety-valve cap is frustratingly difficult to unscrew cleanly.