Cornea
Dry eye: why it burns and what helps
1 min read Dr. Alejandro Navas Pérez
Cornea and refractive surgery
It is rarely a lack of water: usually the tear film evaporates too fast. That is why drops alone are not always enough.
Tears are not just water: they carry an oily layer that holds the film together and keeps it from evaporating. When that layer fails, the eye burns, tires and clouds over at times, even while watering. That is why the most common complaint in dry eye is, oddly, watering.
What makes it worse
- Screen time: when you concentrate you blink less than half as often.
- Air conditioning or a fan pointed at your face.
- Some daily medications, which dry things out without you noticing.
- Wearing contact lenses longer than you should.
What happens at the visit
We look at the ocular surface and the tear quality, and above all at the lid margin, which is where those oils come from. Treatment depends on the finding: an eye that makes too few tears is not the same as one that makes them and loses them.
It is worth sorting out before any eye surgery, and not only for comfort: the tear film is part of the eye optics, and an irregular surface changes the measurements a surgery is planned with.
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Tags Dry eyeOcular surfaceScreens
