It's just an eye drop?

How may times have I heard "its just an eye drop" in my career? If I had a penny for each time I could probable retire.

I hear it from patients, their families and sadly from my fellow professionals. I remember once handing a patient over to ward staff, the patient had a corneal ulcer and was in danger of perforation. They were on half hourly drops and the nurse told me the patient wasn't going to get them as she was to busy to do that as she was giving medication. I asked her what she thought the eye drop was if it wasn't medication? (In this case the medication was sight saving but then this goes back to the idea "its just an eye" but that's for another blog.)

Eye drops are a vital part of our everyday practice, they allow us to diagnose conditions by staining the front of the eye, measuring the pressure in the eye and viewing the retina. They allow us to undertake procedures such as cataract surgery and Intravitreal injections. They also allow us to treat conditions such as Glaucoma, Uveitis, Corneal Ulcers and Dry Eyes.

As some eye drops for example for dry eyes can be bought over the counter patients don't often consider them medications even if they use the drops for life long conditions such as Glaucoma. As the drops are out and about in clinics so much, I think even we as professionals forget they are a medication and should be stored and protected as such.

As Ophthalmic nurses we are in a great position to talk to our patients about drops and how important they are. We can show patients how to use them correctly, for example leaving a gap between each drop if you are on more than one, and to discuss the importance of taking their drops at roughly the same time each day.

We literally couldn't do our jobs without them so YAY for the eye drop.