Are your eyes always dry when you wear contacts? Do your eyes look red and irritated all the time?
These are all signs that you could have dry eye. Figuring out when you want to treat your dry eye is your choice and how it affects your life. Keep reading to learn more about dry eye!
What is Dry Eye?
Your eyes are uncomfortable when you have dry eye. It can feel like your eyes are burning or stinging.
Having dry eye can occur because of your environment, like flying on an airplane or being around AC. It can also occur if you’ve been spending too much time in front of a computer screen.
It is important to prevent dry eye by knowing the causes and symptoms of dry eye.
What are the Symptoms of Dry Eye?
There are a lot of symptoms you could have when you have dry eye. Redness, blurry vision, feeling like something is in your eye, and light sensitivity is common symptoms.
Some patients experience an overproduction of tears. This occurs due to the lack of moisture in your eye.
This feeling sends a signal to increase lubrication. It will create a lot of tears to try to treat the dryness, but the tears are mostly water. Your normal tears are not watery, so they do not cover the surface of your eye.
What Causes Dry Eye?
Dry eye has many different causes. Some people experience dry eye if they produce low-quality tears or not enough tears. It can also be environmental like the air conditioner or heater is on, wind, dry air, and smoking.
Other causes are:
- aging because of menopause
- prescription drug side effects, like from antihistamines
- diseases affecting your tear production such as rheumatoid arthritis and Sjogren’s syndrome
- inflammatory skin and eyelid diseases
- allergies
- a temporary side effect after having LASIK
What Impacts Your Risk of Developing Dry Eye?
- Using screens too much can lead to dry eye. Looking at screens too long means that we blink less, impacting tear evaporation
- Wearing contact lenses
- People who fly often can experience dry eye because of the dry air in the cabin
- Smoking has been linked to many eye conditions including dry eye.
What Are Different Treatments for Dry Eye?
There are many ways to treat dry eye. These are the most common ones:
Artificial Tears
Artificial tears are a great treatment for minor cases of dry eye. Regular usage of artificial tears or eye drops might be a great solution but it’s only temporary.
There are many different brands and formulas of artificial tears. You should talk to your eye doctor about the best option.
Prescription Eye Drops
Sometimes, your doctor will suggest prescription eye drops for your dry eye. There are different eye drop options that they will talk with you about.
Steroid Eye Drops
Doctors have realized the significance of treating inflammation when treating dry eye. Eye inflammation can produce many symptoms connected to dry eye.
Are you ready to treat your dry eyes? Treating your dry eye will improve your quality of life. Schedule a dry eye appointment at Stahl Eyecare Experts in Manhattan, NY today!
