Glaucoma: Reducing Medicine Side Effects

Topic Overview

Side effects often develop from glaucoma medicine, because the medicine moves its way through the nasal duct into the back of the nose where it is absorbed into your body's bloodstream. If you have side effects from your glaucoma eyedrops, one of the following techniques for inserting them may help:

• Gently pinch or pull out your lower eyelid and put your drops into the pocket formed by the pinch. Pinching the lid makes a bigger lid pocket to put drops in. Put the drop in the pocket, close your eyes, and tilt your head back for about 5 minutes. Blot your eyes before opening them to remove excess medicine from around each eye.
• Tilt your head back and put in the drops. Keep your eyes closed for about 5 minutes. Blot your eye before opening it to remove excess medicine.
• Put in the drops. Close your eyes, and gently press on the inside corner of your eye for about 5 minutes. This blocks the tear duct and keeps medicine in the eye from draining out through the duct.

If you have to put in more than one kind of eyedrops at the same time, allow at least 5 minutes between each medicine. This will prevent the first set of eyedrops from being washed out of your eyes.

To be sure that you are using your eyedrops correctly, show your eye doctor how you are putting in the drops.