PUBLICATION EXCLUSIVE: The state of dry eye care, part 1

Back in the Dark Ages, you know, like 1999 or so, dry eye disease was considered the crabgrass that grows on the lawn of eye care. Ophthalmology especially.My tiny tribe of DED pilgrims were looked upon with pity, if we were looked upon at all. Perfectly good dry eye medications were ignored and/or abandoned, even if they had an on-label indication to treat an established dry eye sign or symptom — ahem, Lotemax (loteprednol etabonate, Bausch + Lomb). The near universal opinion in the eye care community was that there was nothing you could really do to treat DED. Why bother even testing for it when the state-of-the-art diagnostic test was just a gussied-up piece of coffee filter someone named Schirmer filched from the staff kitchen?