He said dry eyes can have a major impact on one’s quality of life and can cause tired eyes, blurry vision, discomfort, and burning. Dry eye occurs when a person doesn’t have enough good quality tears to lubricate and nourish the eye. We now know that dry eye is mostly a result of long-term inflammation of the oil glands in our eyelids.

As the oil glands are inflamed, they don’t produce “good” oil, and this causes the tears in our eyes to be poor quality. Tears reduce eye infections, wash away foreign matter, and keep the eye’s surface smooth and clear, so dryness can have a significant impact on quality of life and eye health.

“The symptoms vary widely,” Andrus said. “For many, it feels like sand in their eyes.”

Andrus said bringing the dry eye clinic to Midland was “born out of necessity of me being miserable and my patients being miserable.

“I have dry eyes so bad, my eye lid would scratch the front of my eye,” he said. “This (IPL) has helped significantly with that.”

Andrus, an optometrist for 10 years, said his eyelid went from scratching his eye every other night to only once every couple of months with the treatment.

Prior to the IPL, Andrus had to rely on eyedrops, like most people suffering from dry eye syndrome. However, drops don’t work for everyone.

IPL therapy treats the underlying cause of meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD) and dry eye syndrome (DES), providing long lasting results for millions of dry eye patients. Dry eye syndrome is a common condition that results from insufficient tear quantity or inadequate tear quality. Andrus said an estimated 50 million Americans suffer from dry eye disease.

Because Andrus has the farthest north dry eye clinic in Michigan, people come from many northern areas to see him.

To learn more about Mid-Modern Eyecare, visit https://www.midmoderneyecare.com