Detecting and Treating Dry Eyes

Everyone has experienced at least once a problem with dry eyes. Symptoms of dry eyes are: itching or burning sensation in your eyes, eye redness, feeling of tired eyes, blurred vision or a foreign body sensation. Even if you have cried for a while, the eyes can stay dry. The reason may lie in a disorder of the tear fluid, i.e. the amount of the tear fluid can be too small or instable. Other reasons could be too few blinks or incomplete blinks.

The diabetes, problems with thyroid, or rheumatic disease can also lead to dry eyes. Pharmaceuticals such as beta blocker, psychotropic drugs, sleeping pills or allergy drugs, may reduce production of tear fluid, and, thereby, can cause dry eyes.

Besides the abovementioned diseases, dry air heating and air conditioning may also affect the amount of tear fluid. The “Office Eye Syndrome” is a very frequent syndrome, when a person is constantly working on their computer, which leads to a decreased frequency of blinking, and, thereby, to dry eyes.

The discomfort should not be ignored, because the eyes can become less mobile, the cornea can get scars, that in extreme cases can even lead to blindness.

The following preventive measures may help protecting your eyes:

• Sleep enough
• Use wetting eye drops
• Turn off an air conditioner and a ventilator, rather open a window regularly in the car as well as in the office, avoid direct air stream
• Avoid cigarette smoke
• Drink much water
• Protect your eyes from the sun with sunglasses of high quality from the optician
• Blink often while working on computer, watching TV and reading; have five-minute breaks

Translated from: NDR.de. 2015.  Was hilft bei trockenen Augen?