Punctal plugs are sold with a long tweezer-y looking thing used to insert them. Now, how they are inserted depends partly on what kind of plug they are. But broadly speaking, here is what will happen: Your eye doctor will put in some eyedrops to anaesthetise your eyes. He’ll then use one part of the tweezer-y thing to poke into the puntum and stretch it out a bit. Once it’s ready, he uses the other part of the thing to push the plug into the punctum. Plunk! It’s there, now, on to the next punctum.

In some cases your eye doctor may have to wrestle with your punctum a little bit to get the plug in. It really shouldn’t hurt at all, but you know, that’s what they told me about my wisdom teeth before the five shots of novocaine and the footprint my dentist left on my face when he braced himself and pulled. If your eye doctor hasn’t done this very often, well, either ask for some extra anaesthetic or have a few stiff ones before you show up on his doorstep.

Sorry. Not trying to scare you. It really isn’t that bad at all.

If you hadn’t already figured this out, the fact is that every time I’ve had plugs put in, it was not my favourite experience, but to be honest I think the anticipation is worse than the fact. My best experience with plug insertion was SmartPlugs, because with those ones they don’t have to stretch open the puncta the way they do with standard plugs. Didn’t feel a thing.

Will your tears pool up and run over when you have plugs put in? Well, it’s altogether possible, and in fact they even have a fancy term for it — epiphora. (Now you can really impress your doctor by asking about epiphora before he even puts the plugs in, rather than give him the satisfaction of explaining it to you after you get it.)

Personally, I have never had epiphora, but I know many people who do have it. Some people experience significant enough benefits from the plugs that they tolerate the overflow as the price they pay for healthier and/or more comfortable eyes. Too much overflow can be either embarrassing or convenient, depending whether it’s happening during a job interview or while your great aunt is telling you all about her latest hospitalisation.