 The Appalachian Center for Advanced Eye Care at Pikeville Medical Center is now offering a new type of eye treatment for those experiencing dry eye disease, recurring corneal erosion and other ocular ailments. The Optosite Amniotic Ocular Matrix treats patients without the need for surgery. PMC Ophthalmologist Keith Eisen tells us more. It's just like a regular contact lens, but it has no power associated with it. It's just for sort of like a clear bandaid purposes that goes over the eye while the membrane has time to dissolve. And previous to that we had another application that was much more uncomfortable for the patient. You have the membrane that's sort of kind of really dressed over a hard outer shell that you apply to the patient's eye and it's really uncomfortable. So this is more or less much more comfortable for the patient. Leave it on for a few days and it dissolves and in the bandage contact we just physically remove later. When my baby was born, it was magical. And as she grew, having a hospital close to home with advanced healthcare and specialized physicians being there along the journey was important. And along that journey, many special doctors touched our lives. And then one day, my baby became a woman and a mother herself. Pikeville Medical Center caring for every moment in life. The membrane contains nutrients that benefit the eye, which speeds up the recovery process. This alternative method could prove to be effective for patients not responding to other types of treatments. So it's sort of kind of got different indications. One is like we probably talked before, severe dry eye problems that's not responding to typical medical treatment, we can think about applying these and they can be applied more than once. But it's sort of kind of has got growth factors, nutrients, healing factors that are naturally in the membrane that sort of kind of help the surface heal faster in a better way and may augment that with the medical treatments that we do. Reporting from Mountain Top News, I'm Nick Colum.