What Causes Dry Eyes?

You try to blink away the discomfort but it just keeps persisting. You try rolling your eyes around and squeeze them tight. It hurts a bit but is mostly annoying and distracting. Sometimes you even think it causes slight headaches. Dry eye is not fun. Often it feels like it comes out of nowhere and just keeps bothering you for days, weeks, then months. What is going on? How did this start happening to you and what can you do about it?

What causes dry eyes?

There are a few things that can be going on to cause your dry eyes. Probably unsurprisingly, your environment can play a role in your eyes not being able to function as well. At the surface, you can experience discomfort from air conditioning, looking at a screen all day, or allergy season. Sleeping with your fan on can have a negative affect to your eyes as well, drying them out quicker than your eyes would like. Many people can find relief from eye drops to sooth and add in additional moisture to the area. You can also try a warm compress for 5 minutes a day to relieve your eyes. These things can cause temporary discomfort but what if the problem persists?

The quality of you tears may actually be the deeper reason causing dry eyes. There are three layers to your tear film- the lipid (or oil) layer, the aqueous (or water) layer, and the mucous layer. If any of these three layers are having problems, it can cause dry eye. Most people tend to have a combination of two or more layers of their tears not functioning as they used to. Your aqueous layer may not be producing enough of that film. Conversely, you may have a problem where your tears are evaporating too quickly regardless of the normal amount of tears being produced. What we tend to find, is that as people age that production of any of the layers gets thrown off causing them to then evaporate faster than normal. This means the eyes are then not lubricated enough and feel dry, itchy, or bothersome.

Hormone changes can be the key factor to your quality of tears decreasing. Medications and aging therefore can be the root problem. This is why it is so important to consult with an eye doctor when you start to notice a change occurring. Dry Eye Syndrome can be a very frustrating and debilitating condition. If left untreated, it can lead to severe ocular disease. It may not be fully curable depending on it's underlying cause, but in most cases can be managed successfully. Perich Eye Center doctors treatment plans will give you noticeably greater eye comfort, decrease your symptoms, and sometimes sharper vision.

But could it be my contacts?

For some people, their contact lenses could be the culprit as well. Even when you have been using the same contact lens brand and type for years, these hormone changes and other outside factors could change which type of lenses you need. If you are prone to over using a single set of lenses, this too can cause long term effects that result in dry eyes. It is very important to toss the lenses in the recommended time frame as once they are opened their expiration begins. Many patients do not realize that just because you are not putting the lenses in every day for the 30 days straight they are meant for, that they can wear them on and off over even two months, however these contacts are now expired.

Think of it like this- you decide to cut back on the amount of coffee you drink, from 2 cups a day to 1 cup or a cup every other day. Because of this, you end up taking longer to go through your creamer. The creamer then starts to curdle but you keep using it anyways until it is gone since you hate to waste it. Your coffee doesn’t taste as good and your stomach starts to let you know things just aren’t going right. When you use your contacts beyond their timeline you are essentially drinking curdled creamer! Remember, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should do that thing.

If you are a contact wearer, and find dry eye problems starting to occur, you need to come in to have your doctor take a look. You may even want to consider trying different contacts like single day use ones, especially if you tend to not ware them everyday. At Perich Eye Center, we can ensure you are using the best lenses for your eyes, and even get you into eye drops that would be best suited for you.