Dealing With Dry Eyes And How An Optometrist Can Help

By Dr. Vincent Lam


One of the major problems that the population faces is chronic dry eyes, up to 30% of the population experiences it, the public does not realize there are many things that can be done to aid and treat the condition like over the counter artificial tears, you can enhance tear production with warm compresses and an optometrist can use punctual plugs that are designed to maintain the tear level and contact with the eyeball. There are many medications that can be used to reduce the inflammation and you can be aware of environmental controls, there's no reason for a person to be uncomfortable anymore.

There are a significant number of contact lens patients suffering from dry eyes. Dryness in the eyes is a major reason that people don't have as good a response with the contact lenses because you have to support the contact lenses moisture just like you have to support your own eyes. Many people drop out of contact lenses, but they don't really have to.

People frequently use words like stinging and tearing and it's not at all a result of the strong correlation between the signs that a person encounters and the intensity of the dry eye. There are procedures which allow optometrists to assess the osmolarity of the tear film which studies have shown has a direct correlation to the damages that occur in the eye. An eye doctor can monitor the treatment progress as a feature of altering the levels of osmolarity based on this brand-new system.

When you begin an eye exam to assess the quality of the tear film and to examine the evaporation rate of the tear film, that's called tear breakup time. An optometrist inserts a specialized dye which allows them to really measure the length of time that the tears remain in contact with the eyeball. A quickly vaporizing tear film is going to expose the nerves which in turn will make the individual uneasy which will cause people to frequently complain and make mention to their eye doctor that their eyes are bothering them. The complaint will generally be that their eyes are tearing very often when in fact the problem is a lack of consistency and the ability of the tear to stay in contact with the eye. This results in a compensation of tear production to compensate for lack of moisture in the eye.

Factors like cold weather and allergies may play a large role in affecting the dry eye condition. Experiencing both allergies and dry eye at the same time, deferentially draw that and diagnosing can sometimes be challenging, but the sooner that can be done the sooner a person could be given a relief. Coming into to see your local optometrist and scheduling an eye exam will help eradicate any further damage to your eyes. Getting into the allergy season soon, its beautiful outside now and spring time is the classical time when people experience the most allergy symptoms. The antihistamine that most people are taking whether prescribed or not prescribed orally, have a secondary side effect of reducing tear production and can make the dry eye situation much worse, that's why its important to look for both sides of the spectrum.




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Unknown said...

The last few days have been miserable, my eyes are so dry! I didn't know that cold weather could have an effect on your eyes, and make them dry. I moved to a new area over the summer, and I'm not used to winters like this, so hopefully it's just that. It might be a good idea to get into an optometrist, and see if there is anything else going on.

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29 May 2015 at 06:58

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