Do your eyes ever glaze over as you’re standing in the grocery or drug store’s beauty and health section? The sheer number and variety of products can leave you shaking your head. Same goes for eyecare products. Just how do you know what to buy that will be kind to your eyes?

We talked with VSP doctor, David Jones, O.D., to get some tips. 

“With hundreds of different products sitting on the drugstore shelf, it’s quite easy to become confused about which cleaning solution is most appropriate for cleaning the contact lenses you wear, or which artificial tear product to buy for dry eyes,” he says. Here are some of Dr. Jones’ suggestions:

• Symptom: Itchy and watery eyes that often look red and bloodshot. Likely enemy? Allergies. Ask your eye doctor if anti-allergy medications might help you. And ditch the over-the-counter “redness relievers” – no matter the brand. They may promise relief, but the solutions are cosmetic only and will just mask your symptoms, nothing more.
• Symptom: Dry eyes likely caused from hours on end in front of the computer. What to do? Give them a drink – in the form of artificial tear products. They actually contain a lot of the natural lubricating products your eyes produce on their own.
• Problem: Container confusion. Imagine the pain if you got some unfriendly ointment in your eyes by mistake. The lesson here is – keep products that don’t belong in the same “family” away from each other. Use separate drawers or other dividers to keep your eye products isolated.
• Problem: Bad blends. Not all contact lens solutions like each other. Solutions for cleaning, disinfecting and storing them overnight need to be compatible, or eye problems can results. “The best approach is to ask your eye doctor for a list of contact lens preparations,” says Dr. Jones. “If you stick with the list, you won’t have to worry about incompatibility.”

Source: VSP