Do you take your eye medication as instructed?

Recently, a patient who was prescribed an eye medication to be used four times a day, returned a day later because her eyes flared up again. She reported that she took the medication four times and the eye felt better only in the morning, but got worse as the day progressed. The patient had in fact instilled four drops all at once instead of one drop at four equal intervals during the day! This might seem far-fetched, but there are reports of patients taking protein tablets orally instead of dissolving them in a vial to clean contact lenses. Generally, familiar eye medications are prescribed to treat, or prevent eye disease and the assumption is made that all patients understand the traditional dosing schedules.