What Patients Do About Dry Eye Before They Ever Call the Office

By Tom Chapman, Peeq Pro CEO

Dry eye care doesn’t begin in the clinic.

It begins at home, late at night, with a phone in hand and a growing sense that something isn’t right.

Most eye health care visits today are driven by discomfort, not visual acuity. Patients aren’t calling because they can’t see. They’re calling because their eyes hurt. But long before they reach out to an office, most patients have already started trying to solve the problem themselves.

What Patients Search For (and Why It Matters)

We can see this clearly in search behavior.

Questions about dry eye and medications like Lexapro or Dupixent appear with striking consistency month after month. These are not spikes driven by news cycles or trends. They are steady, repeated searches that suggest patients are trying to understand cause and effect.

These medications are not “eye drugs,” which is exactly why the questions matter. Patients sense a connection, but they don’t know whether it’s real, relevant, or worth mentioning to their doctor. So they search. They read Reddit threads. They watch TikTok videos. Increasingly, they ask AI tools to help make sense of timing, symptoms, and possible interactions.

What they are really searching for is reassurance and clarity, not a diagnosis. It is a little what is going on - and a lot, how do I feel better.

What Patients Try on Their Own

Search behavior is only part of the story. Action comes next.

At Peeq, we consistently see non-patient purchases of products that strongly suggest self-directed treatment: eye ointments, redness relievers like Lumify, and other comfort-focused therapies. These purchases often happen before a patient schedules an appointment or completes a full evaluation.

This tells us something important: patients are not non-compliant by nature. They are trying, often repeatedly, to feel better.

The problem is not effort. It’s fragmentation.

Patients test multiple treatments, frequently switching too quickly, stopping too early, or combining products without understanding how or when they should work. Even when they stumble onto the “right” therapy, it’s often not used long enough to demonstrate real benefit.

This is also why most patients that leave your office end up non-compliant. Actual compliance at our 7-day check is about 10%. When you couple that with scanning and purchase rate, that means the average office has a true compliance rate under 2%.

From the patient’s perspective, dry eye feels unpredictable and discouraging. From the clinic’s perspective, it can look like poor adherence.

In reality, it’s usually a lack of support.

What Patients Tell Us Directly

When we speak to patients, a consistent theme emerges: many do not feel heard, and many are unsure whether what they’re experiencing is normal.

Most are not asking for lengthy explanations or immediate escalation. They want reassurance:

• That their symptoms are common
  

• That improvement takes time
  

• That what they’re doing makes sense
  
  

When patients receive that reassurance, especially outside of the clinic, behavior changes. They become more consistent. More patient. More willing to stick with a plan.

Why Support Outside the Clinic Matters

This is where ongoing support plays a critical role.

Organizations like Peeq don’t replace clinical care, we extend it. By reinforcing education, normalizing the treatment timeline, and supporting adherence outside the office, patients are more likely to stay engaged rather than cycling through random solutions.

This support has meaningful downstream effects:

• Fewer ocular surface disease evaluation no-shows
  

• Higher repurchase and re-engagement rates
  

• Increased acceptance of advanced treatments like IPL and LipiFlow when appropriate
  

These outcomes were not the original goal, but they have become a consistent benefit for both patients and practices.

Dry eye protocols don’t end when the patient leaves the office. They succeed or fail in the weeks that follow.

And that’s where patient behavior, searching, testing, stopping, restarting, tells us exactly where support is most needed.

Read Parts 2 and 3 here:

PART 2: https://peeqpro.com/blogs/blogs-for-doctors/listening-with-experience-how-intake-turns-discomfort-into-direction

PART 3: https://peeqpro.com/blogs/blogs-for-doctors/in-lane-alignment-how-dry-eye-becomes-actionable-care