The Management of dry eyes is usually in two phases:

 

An initially Intensive Phase with an aggressive management programme that includes intensive intervention and frequent visits. This phase varies in duration depending upon the severity of the problem but typically lasts between one and three months involving three to five visits.

 

A follow-up Maintenance Phase follows the intensive management. The maintenance phase involves both reduced intervention and less frequent visits. This phase is critical to the long term success in dealing with dry eye; because dry eye problems are chronic problem the management needs to be on going and its abandonment leads to the recurrence of the problem, sometimes with greater severity. The typical maintenance phase visit frequency is six monthly, however, at times of changes in the dry eye condition three monthly visits are necessary.