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Subscribe to Our NewsletterDry Eyes
A dry eye evaluation can be done as part of a regular examination, or separately at any time. Treatment regimens are not difficult, and always provide improvement.
Having a dry eye creates symptoms that people often associate with other causes, such as allergic reactions. It’s easy to differentiate them. Allergic reactions are usually seasonal, and produce itching redness and swelling. Dry eye produces light sensitivity, tearing, variable vision, and a feeling of scratchiness. More than half of all adults have dry eye syndrome.
If you wear contact lenses, dry eyes produce dry lenses. There’s nothing wrong with the lens, but because the eye is dry, so is the lens. Switching lenses doesn’t help, because it doesn’t change the underlying problem.
The eye has a unique system for protecting itself from dehydration. In the upper and lower eyelids are sebaceous glands that manufacture and secrete oil onto the surface of the eye. The oil spreads out over the water part of the tear and forms a barrier to evaporation. If the oil glands aren’t making a sufficient amount of oil, or if the quality of the oil is compromised because the necessary elements to make high quality oil are absent from your diet, the barrier layer will be unstable and dehydration will occur.
Inflammation is a strong component of dry eye, which is what makes a dry eye look “red.” In addition to treating the dry eye condition, it is important to address the inflamatory component. Visine and Murine will make your eye whiter by closing down the blood supply to the dilated conjunctival vessels, but they are only masking the problem, and will create a rebound effect after they wear off that makes it necessary to use them constantly.
Eye drops provide minimal and fleeting relief, because they don’t address the underlying cause, they just treat the symptoms. For some severe dry eye cases, the use of gels or oil based ointments can be helpful, but they disturb vision, so their use is limited to bedtime.
If you suffer from unstable or variable clarity of vision, light sensitivity, scratchiness, and occasional tearing, you should have your eyes evaluated for dry eye syndrome. Dry eye problems tend to be chronic, but it’s easy to manage the condition to provide comfort, clarity, and a return to “normal.”
A dry eye evaluation can be done as part of a regular examination, or separately at any time. Treatment regimens are not difficult, and always provide improvement.