Millions of people in this country alone head to their eye doctors seeking dry eye care because they cannot seem to produce enough tears to keep their eyes lubricated. This condition is called dry eye syndrome and can be caused by a variety of conditions from inferior tear quality to blocked tear ducts.

Signs and Symptoms

Dry eye care is often needed when you exhibit such symptoms as burning, scratching, stinging and mucosal eyes. Irritation from weather conditions such as pollution, wind and even smoke can also cause dry eyes as does wearing contact lenses.

It may sound odd but dry eye syndrome could exhibit signs like watery eyes. When the tears are not able to keep your eyes moist they could end up actually producing a large quantity of tears. This copious amount of tears actually ends up flooding the drainage system of your eyes causing excessive tearing and irritation.

Treatment Steps

Eye drops, also known as artificial tears, is often the first step in dry eye care and can be found without a prescription in many pharmacies. Sometimes doctors can help you save your own tears by permanently or temporarily blocking the channels that allow the tears to drain from your eyes to the nose.

The use of a humidifier and avoiding overly dry areas like a windy day or a smoky bar is another part of dry eye care. The humidifier puts moisture back into your room which should help prevent the loss of lubrication in your eyes. Those people who wake up with irritated eyes can use a special ointment before they go to bed as part of their dry eye care regiment.

Testing

Diagnosing dry eyes is a fairly simple task for most eye doctors just via a simple examination but sometimes tests like one that measures tear production is necessary to see just how far gone the condition is. Special diagnostic drops are sometimes used to check for dry patches on the eye’s surface which could indicate other eye problems. Based on what the doctor’s findings are will dictate the type of dry eye care that you would have to follow.

Likely Causes

Getting older is part of the reason why tear production decreases and more women than men are affected, mainly due to hormonal events like menopause. Usually artificial tears works great as a dry eye care treatment in this type of situation. Sometimes the underlying cause can be traced back to the type of medications you take, both over the counter and prescription. Such medications for allergies like anti-histamines as well as medications for insomnia, high blood pressure and anti-anxiety drugs have drying agents. Switching medications can usually help with your dry eye care but make sure that you do so with a doctor’s guidance.

Those individuals who suffer from dry eyes logically reach for the artificial tears you can find in the pharmacy to alleviate the itching and burning. However, sometimes this particular dry eye care can make the problem worse if that individual has a negative reaction to some of the chemicals in those artificial tears. In this case, preservative-free artificial tears should be considered as part of the dry eye care instead.