Did you know prescription eyedrop bottles release drops that are 5 times too large for your eye to absorb? This means that if you have a 100 percent success rate getting eyedrops into your eye, you are still wasting 80 percent of the medication in your bottle. 

This is where nanodrops (which you can achieve with the Nanodropper!) come into play regarding your eye health. It may sound too good to be true, but simply finding a way to produce smaller eyedrops is the answer. 

When the Nanodropper team began designing an eyedrop bottle adaptor that achieves an ideal-sized eyedrop just large enough for the eye to absorb, we found decades of research (our whitepaper cites research as far back as 1980) demonstrating the effectiveness of smaller eyedrops versus the current oversized ones we’re all used to.

So how big are Nanodropper’s nanodrops compared to regular drops? Well technically, the Nanodropper creates microdrops, 10-15 microliters to be exact. Compare that to the 35-70 microliter drops that normally come out of your bottle, and the difference speaks for itself!

This may sound like just a problem for people who use expensive eyedrops for diseases like glaucoma, but the math is simply undeniable. Since the Nanodropper triples the number of drops per bottle, if any eyedrops you use cost more than just $8 per month, the Nanodropper adaptor is an investment that would pay for itself (the Nanodropper is not reusable, but it can make each bottle last up to 3 months! That’s the suggested shelf life of most prescription eyedrop medications, per American Academy of Ophthalmology guidelines). 

Dr. Alan Robin, a world-renowned glaucoma specialist and founding member of the American Glaucoma Society, has published research spanning decades that demonstrates the effectiveness of microdrops.

“Two of the greatest obstacles to adherence are both price and convenience. The Nanodropper adaptor has the potential to minimize both of these impediments,” Dr. Robin said. “Most commercial drops have a volume between 30 and 50 microliters. By reducing the volume per drop to 10 microliters, the effect of each drop should be the same, yet a bottle would last approximately 3 to 5 times longer. This would not only make medication last longer, obviating the need for frequent visits to pharmacies, but also significantly reduce medication burden on individuals with fixed incomes.”

To learn more about medication waste in the eye health sector, read this previous blog post about the early inspiration for the Nanodropper. To purchase the Nanodropper adaptor, click here to buy online or click here to see if your eyecare provider offers the Nanodropper in their clinic.