DRY EYE

If you have dry eye, your symptoms may include irritated, scratchy, dry, uncomfortable or red eyes, a burning sensation, excessive tearing, blurred vision, or a feeling of something foreign in your eyes. Excessive dry eyes may damage eye tissue, scar your cornea (the front covering of your eyes) and impair vision and make contact lens wear difficult.

The tears your eyes produce are necessary for overall eye health and clear vision. Dry eye means that your eyes do not produce enough tears or that you produce tears that do not have the proper chemical composition, (there are three different components to tears). Dry eye is more common as we age. It can also be caused by blinking or eyelid problems, or some medications or a dry climate.

Dry eyes are caused by a lack of adequate tears or some parts of the tear not being produced. Your tears are a complex mixture of water, fatty oils and mucus. This mixture helps make the surface of your eyes smooth and clear, and it helps protect your eyes from infection. For some people, the cause of dry eyes is decreased tear production. For others it’s increased tear evaporation and in others an imbalance in the makeup of your tears.

Factors that make it more likely that you’ll experience dry eye include:

• Being older than 50. Tear production tends to diminish as you get older. Dry eyes are more common in people over 50.

• Being a woman. A lack of tears is more common in women, especially if they experience hormonal changes due to pregnancy, using birth control pills or menopause.

• Eating a diet that is low in vitamin A, which is found in liver, carrots and broccoli, or low in omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in fish, walnuts and vegetable oils

• Wearing contact lenses

Cause and Treatment of Dry Eye

It is important that the Ophthalmologist conducts various tests to find the underlying cause of the dry eye and then the correct treatment plan can be implemented. If the cause of the dry eye problem is not fully diagnosed, and the correct treatment is not organized by an Ophthalmologist it can lead to various complications:

• Eye infections. Your tears protect the surface of your eyes from infection. Without adequate tears, you may have an increased risk of eye infection.

• Damage to the surface of your eyes. If left untreated, severe dry eyes may lead to eye inflammation, abrasion of the corneal surface, corneal ulcer and vision problems.

• Decreased quality of life. Dry eyes can make it difficult to perform everyday activities, such as reading.

If you have a persistent dry eye problem and “off the shelf” artificial tears are not resolving it a correct diagnosis for the cause and a treatment plan from the Ophthalmologist at Vision Express is the way forward.