Suggest Treatment For Excessive Tearing Of The Eyes

Posted on Fri, 19 Jan 2018

Question: Having common allergy symptoms but eyes have excessive water IN the eyes all the time with redness. Allergy eye drops relieve the redness but not the excessive water build up

Answered by Dr. Michelle Gibson James (16 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
different eye drop, consider montelukast, ketotifen

Detailed Answer:
Hi, thanks for using healthcare magic

The excess watery symptom also occurs with allergies as well.

There are some allergy drops such as pataday which help better than over the counter drops , if this is what you have been using.
It contains an antihistamine wheras a number of other drops just have medication to narrow the blood vessels and therefore reduce the redness

In addition, oral medications such as montelukast or ketotifen which work at different points in the allergic response may also be helpful if there is no improvement.

These are often used if antihistamines on their own, are not enough.

I hope this helps, feel free to ask any other questions

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar

Follow up: Dr. Michelle Gibson James (16 minutes later)

Thank you. Are all these suggested medications by prescription only?

Answered by Dr. Michelle Gibson James (7 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
montelukast would likely require a prescription

Detailed Answer:
HI

The generic form of pataday is olopatadine and it is possible that it may be be available over the counter but this would need to be checked at your local pharmacy

Ketotifen, both the oral and topical eye drops (did not mention earlier), can also sometimes be available over the counter

If you cannot get the pataday/olopatadine, then you can use the ketotifen drops

Montelukast would likely require a prescription from a doctor

Please feel free to ask any other questions

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar