How to actually get an eye drop into your eye

Eye drops are among the most expensive medications we dispense per milliliter, and among the most commonly wasted. The bottle is sized for a specific number of doses. If you miss a third of them, you run out early, your refill is denied as too soon, and your treatment has a gap in it.

The technique that works

• Wash your hands and take the cap off. Do not let the tip touch anything, including your eye or eyelashes.
• Tilt your head back and look up at the ceiling.
• Use one finger to pull your lower eyelid down, making a small pocket between the lid and your eye.
• Hold the bottle above that pocket, not above your pupil, and squeeze one drop into the pocket.
• Close your eye gently. Do not squeeze it shut and do not blink hard, since both push the drop straight out.
• Press a finger against the inner corner of your eye, next to your nose, and hold for about a minute.

If you use more than one drop

Wait at least five minutes between different medications. Put them in back to back and the second one washes out the first. If one of them is an ointment or a gel, put it in last.

If your hands shake, or you cannot tilt your head back

Lie down instead. Close your eye, put the drop in the inner corner while the eye is shut, then open it and let the drop roll in. It is less precise, but it is far better than missing entirely.

There are also inexpensive guide devices that clip onto the bottle and hold it at the right distance and angle. Ask any of our pharmacists and we will show you one.

One thing worth knowing about the bottle

Most eye drop bottles hold meaningfully more doses than the prescription accounts for, which is why they seem to last longer than expected. They also have an expiration window once opened, which is shorter than the printed expiration date on many preservative-free products. If you are unsure whether a bottle is still good, bring it in rather than guessing.