Believe it or not, your eyes are full of tears even when you are happy. Tears provide lubrication and moisture to help you keep your peepers comfortable and to enable you to see clearly. In tears, you will find a mix of lubricating oil, moisturizing water, antibodies that keep your eyes from being infected and mucus to spread everything around evenly. Special glands around your eyes produce these ingredients. Often, when you have dry eyes, this means that there is an imbalance somewhere in the system.
The Real Cause of Dry Eyes
When you experience dry eyes, this is sometimes caused by an imbalance in the system of your tear-flow. Your tear film may also be dried out due to things around you such as your heater or air conditioner. Other real causes of dry eyes include:
- Conditions that don’t let you close your eyes completely
- Diseases affecting your tear-making ability such as collagen vascular disease, rheumatoid arthritis and Sjorgren’s syndrome.
- Antihistamines sometimes have dry-eye side effects.
- Menopause and the aging process.
Symptoms of Dry Eyes
When your eyes don’t get enough moisture from tears, you will notice light sensitivity, blurry vision, redness, itching, feeling like there is something within your eyes and a feeling of gritty-ness. At times, having eyes that are dry create an overflow of tears. This condition is confusing and is called tearing reflex. It occurs when your eyes are irritated from a lack of moisture. It sends a signal of distress for more lubrication through your nervous system. To make up for the dryness, your body then sends a flood of tears. It is the same thing that happens when an eyelash gets caught in your eye, then the tears start to flow. The tears wash away the debris but they can’t coat the surface of your eyes.
Get Your Dry Eyes Treated
If you happen to be in the area of Arizona, it isn’t going to be very hard to find treatment for dry eyes, particularly with Arizona Retinal Specialists just around the corner. Make an appointment and ask them what to do. There are a few options you can take and you can ask your doctor about this.
Artificial tears
These come in ointment or eye drop forms. Mainly, this is one of the first things people use to treat dry eyes, and most don’t even need a doctor’s prescription. Try out a few and see which one you like best. You may need these drops even when your eyes feel fine, if you have been suffering from chronic dry eyes for a long time. At night you can product such as ointment if you find that your eyes dry out while you sleep.
When it comes to dry eyes, you are not alone. In fact, more and more people are suffering from dry eyes with all the time they spend on the computer and other gadgets.
