Chronic dry eyes are a common condition that occurs as a result of inadequate lubrication to the eye. This happens when your tears become unable to supply enough lubrication to the eye. This leads to the inflammation and damage of the eye’s surface. It is important to get yourself alert on the methods and prevention to minimize your eyes from getting this condition.
Dry Eye Syndrome
Dry Eye Syndrome (DES) which is also referred to as Keratoconjunctivitis Sicca (KCS) is the condition of having dry eyes. Poor quality, quick evaporation, and the insufficient amount of tear production are few causes for a dry eye to occur. Affecting a percentage of 5%-34% of the population, dry eye syndrome is considered a common condition.
This can be due to various reasons like the usage of contact lenses, pregnancy, aging, vitamin A deficiency, computer use, menopause, meibomian gland dysfunction. Eyelid problems, infections, external environmental conditions, tobacco smoke exposure, and certain medications are few more causes for a dry eye condition.
Symptoms Of Chronic Dry Eyes
It is important to differentiate a normal and chronic dry eye as the normal dry eye causes mostly due to conditions such as exposing to a windy climate for too long, spending long hours in front of the computer, or wearing contact lenses for too long. The normal dry eye condition can be resolved easily. However, the symptoms of chronic dry eyes are mostly due to an underlying condition, irrespective of the environmental conditions.
The most common symptoms of chronic dry eyes are redness, burning, and pain in the eyes. It might also follow with more symptoms like scratchy sensation in the eyes, stringy mucus in or around the eyes, blurred vision, and eye fatigue. A person suffering from chronic dry eyes may also find difficulties in wearing contacts, sensitivity to light, and difficulty in nighttime driving.
Home Remedies To Alleviate The Dry Eyes
Apart from the prescribed medicine given by the eye specialist or the ophthalmologists you can follow a few home remedies or preventions that you can take to alleviate the symptoms. Most importantly, keep your eyes clean, clean your eyelids with a mild shampoo or soap, and make sure to thoroughly remove your eye makeup each day.
Be thoughtful about your external environment, if the air is too dry use a humidifier to keep the air moist and avoid spending long hours in dusty, smoke or dry places. If you are using the computer for a long time make sure the computer screen is at eye level and take breaks in every 20 minutes to rest your eyes and blink more frequently.
Avoid smoking as it can worsen your symptoms. Wear sunglasses with 100% UV protection and avoid direct air blown into your eyes. A good sleep at night can also contribute to reducing your dry eye symptoms. Eye Specialist says that the intake of omega – 3 supplements can also help to relieve the condition.
Medications For Chronic Dry Eyes
Even though there is less chance for a complete cure for Chronic Dry Eyes, it can be managed successfully. Therefore it is best advised to get treated early to avoid the condition getting worse. Depending on the cause and severity of your condition your eye specialist will recommend one or few dry eye treatments. Hence it is important to get your eye tested by an eye clinic to analyze the condition.
Artificial tears are the first step that will be taken to ease the symptoms. This will help to increase the moisture of your eye. There are also high lubricating gel-like artificial tears which are preferably used before sleep as it can cause blurry vision. Your eye specialist will suggest one or two of these drops and how often you need to use it on a day.
Also, instead of these artificial tear drops that can be found in the counters, your eye specialist might suggest you prescribed tear drops such as Restasis, Xiidra, or steroid. These eye drops will be prescribed depending on your symptoms and condition to reduce inflammation.
For patients with moderate and severe symptoms, a sterile named Lacrisert is used for the slow release of lubricant providing moisture all day. Punctal plugs are also used to help tears remain on the surface of the eye for a longer period. An ophthalmologist may also follow a Meibomian Gland expression to get them to function properly for adequate oil secretion.
Warm compresses can also be used to open the clogged oil glands in the eyes. Lipiflow and Intense pulsed light are two more treatments that can be followed to minimize the symptoms of chronic eye disease. All these measures will be decided by the ophthalmologists after a proper diagnosis of your signs and symptoms.
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