How to Put In Eyedrops Without Missing — 5 Tips
What good is an eyedrop if it doesn’t even make it into your eye?
Unlike other forms of medication that you might swallow or apply to your skin, eyedrops require experience and discipline to administer them correctly.
Many people (and especially small children) shudder at the thought of something getting close to their eye, and can’t help but squint or blink when the dropper hovers over their face. Others might find no issue comfortably holding their eyes open, but whether because of shaky hands or trouble predicting where the drop will land, they miss. Another dose is wasted.
Many eyedrops aren’t cheap, so it’s generally worthwhile to practice the art of instilling eyedrops to get the most out of your supply. NanoNews briefly covered this topic in a previous article surrounding ways to reduce eyedrop waste, but now it’s time to thoroughly analyze several tips for the best technique.
Here are 5 different ways you can nail good form when using eyedrops, plus a bonus tip if you’re a heavy blinker.
1. Pull Your Lower Eyelid Down
One sure-fire way to increase the chances of your drops hitting their mark is to simply make the target zone bigger by pulling down your lower eyelid.
This does NOT require you to actually touch your eye, and any drops that fall inside of the pocket your lower lid creates will easily reach their destination as soon as you stop pulling.
The proper way to make a lid pocket is to place the tip of either the middle or index finger of your non-dominant hand just beneath your lower eyelid (no need to actually touch the lid). Then give it a gentle tug to widen the surface area of your eye, giving drops more room to land.
You can even take a few seconds to practice in front of a mirror to get a better idea of how much space you have to work with during the actual dropping process.
This video from Mayo Clinic provides a great example of how to accomplish this concept!
2. Tilt Your Head Back
You’d be surprised how many people forget this important factor when aiming drops for their eyes.
To be fair, sometimes it’s hard to focus on keeping your head tilted back — especially if you tend to be fidgety with an eyedrop bottle closing in! But without a level eye, aiming your drops can be much more difficult than it needs to be.
The typical recommendation is to tilt your head back until you can see the ceiling directly above you (or even slightly behind). Pick a spot up there and fix your gaze on it, even as the eyedrop bottle approaches. Looking at a specific point can help you keep your head at the correct angle, even if you lose focus.
If you use a Nanodropper Adaptor with your eyedrop bottle, the blue silicone tip might make it easier to aim against a white ceiling!
3. Steady Your Dropping Arm
Have you ever tried writing without resting your wrist on a flat surface? It’s difficult…just like instilling eyedrops while operating your arm like a construction crane!
Your chances of missing your eye get much higher with an unsteady eyedrop bottle. This is one of the biggest ways eye medication (or artificial tear solution) is wasted: it misses the mark.
Vastly improve the accuracy of your aiming by simply resting your dropping arm — usually your dominant arm — on the back of your other arm. This can be easily accomplished if you’re already pulling down your lower lid — just rest your dropping hand’s wrist on the back of your lid-pulling hand.
With the added support, you’ll often find that your eyedrops actually go where you want them to go, instead of paying the bridge of your nose a visit!
4. Only Squeeze One Drop at a Time
While it might make sense that squeezing out multiple eyedrops at once creates a better chance landing one in your eye, it’s often overkill and leads to waste — and even has the potential of generating unwanted side effects by essentially overdosing your eye.
If your accuracy is off in the first place, those extra drops will probably all land in the wrong spots across your face. And even if your aim is good, you’ll still be pooling up too much solution for your eye to handle.
By instilling a single drop at a time, you ensure the intended volume of eye solution goes where it’s supposed to go. If you miss, the place where that single drop falls gives you a chance to recalibrate and try again. Plus, you’ve only wasted one drop as opposed to eight!
Unfortunately, due to the way most eyedrop bottles are manufactured, even one drop is usually too big for your eye to properly absorb, meaning excess runoff (or rapid drainage down your tear ducts) can be somewhat inevitable. To address this problem, take a look at the Nanodropper Adaptor, which screws on top of the majority of eyedrop bottles and create drops that are the perfect size for your eye, tripling the life of your bottle.
5. Take Your Time
Instilling eyedrops comes naturally for some people, but for many others, it’s quite difficult. And that’s okay!
If your experience with eyedrops is riddled with having trouble staying still, aiming well, or keeping your eyes open, sometimes it pays to put the bottle down for a minute or two. It’s no good trying to focus your eyes and remain steady when your previous attempts have left you a bit flustered.
Take a deep breath, blink a few times, and reassure yourself. Take the process slowly and remain calm. With practice, you can get used to taking eyedrops and the discomfort will be a thing of the past. It will just take time.
If you still struggle administering eyedrops alone, try seeking out a friend or family member to help. Most of the time, they’ll have much better aim and precision than you could achieve by yourself.
Bonus Tip: A Method for Blinkers
Can’t help but squeeze your eyes shut, no matter how far away the dropper is? We’ve got a workaround for you.
Instead of straining to keep your eyes open for an incoming drop, try tilting your head back and getting a sense of where the inside corner of your eye next to your nose is (just don’t touch the tip of your dropper to your face). Then close your eyes, carefully apply a drop to the inside corner, and open your eyes again. You should quickly feel the eye solution leaking over the surface of your eye once it’s open. At this point, you can close your eyes again so the solution can be absorbed.
This method is just as effective as the traditional approach to instilling eyedrops, so feel free to make this your go-to technique for future applications.
Drop on!
