Patient Resources
Everyday eye care

Inserting Eye Drops

At Innovative Eye Care, we are proud to operate an online store to make a range of lubricating eye drops available for our patients and customers.

Step-by-step for inserting eye drops:

Wash your hands first. Avoid contaminating the tip of the bottle on your skin, hands or eye when you have opened the cap.

  1. Tilt your head backwards (some patients prefer to instead instill their drops lying down).
  2. Using one hand pull the lower eyelid down to form a pouch between the eyelid and your eye for the drop to fall into.
  3. With the other hand hold your bottle directly above your eye, a few centimetres away. Some patients find they can position the bottle best when they look right up at the tip. While other patients find it hard to balance like this, and will do better when they rest the body of the bottle across the nose.
Figure 1. Looking at tip of bottle to insert eye drop (left), or resting body of bottle against nose to insert eye drop (right).
  1. For a vial unit doses such as Cationorm or Poly Gel, and some bottles such as NovaTears. Squeeze gently to release a drop into the eye. Release your lower lid gently and close your eye. Try not to squeeze too tightly as this may squeeze the drop out of your eye.
  • If using Hylo-Forte or Hylo-Fresh, turn the bottle upside down so the dropper tip points down, place your thumb near the dropper tip and your index and middle finger at the base. Press firmly and quickly at the base of the bottle to release a drop.
  • If using Cationorm multidose bottle, turn the bottle upside down so the dropper tip points down. Place your index finger on your eyebrow for stability and squeeze gently with your thumb and middle finger to release a drop. Allow the bottle to return to its original shape before squeezing another drop.

If you need to put a different drop into the eyes, allow 15 minutes between them so they do not wash each other out and reduce their effect. It can help to keep your eye drops in the fridge so that you feel the cool drop in your eye and know that it has gone in correctly.

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