Dry Eye
Dry eye is one of the most common complaints seen in Eye doctors’ offices today.
Think about dry eye like you do dry skin. When your skin is dry you put lotion on it multiple times over a few weeks to heal the damage. Dry eyes are the same way, when the damage happens it takes artificial tear use 3 to 4 times a day for a few weeks to help heal the damage and get back to a normal situation. Like dry skin if you discontinue treatment of your dry eyes the symptoms return. It is much easier to treat dry skin and dry eyes on a prophylactic basis rather than waiting for the damage to occur and then to then try and heal the damage. It is much better to prevent the damage from happening in the first place.
Dry eyes have many symptoms some of the main ones are burning, itching, blurred vision, fluctuating vision, eye pain, scratchiness, and excessive tearing.
The typical dry eye patient complains of burning, watery eyes. As the eye dries out it irritates the corneal nerves. These nerves have a feed back loop to the lacrimal gland, the gland that produces tears, and triggers the watering eyes.
A person’s eyes may be dry for several reasons. The first reason is the insufficient aqueous tear production, the watery component of tears. Recent research has shown that as the eye gets dry the eye suffers from inflammation. One of the structures affected is the lacrimal gland. As this gland becomes inflamed it produces fewer tears. Because of this short term anti-inflammatory drugs are helpful. Sometimes a new drug called Restasis can reduce this inflammation that is of a chronic nature.
The second reason a persons eye may be getting dry is a dysfunction of the oil producing glands of the eye. These glands are called meibomian glands. They produce the top layer to the tear film and help slow down and prevent the evaporation of the tear film. The oil in these glands can solidify preventing the oil from excreting onto the tear film. If this oil solidifies to much it can lead to a chalazian commonly called a stye. To treat this cause of dry eye, warm compresses on the eye lids for 5 minutes, 2 to 3 times a day are very helpful.
Dry eyes can lead to infection and vision issues.
There are several things you can do to help with this condition including not smoking, drinking plenty of water, using eye drops and more. If you can discern certain habits that may increase your eye dryness, you will have better success in treating it. Look for patterns of when your eyes are dry. Some common times are: upon waking, computer use, driving and being outside in the wind. Prolonged close work or reading due to a decrease in the blink rate also causes dry eyes.