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Understanding Dry Eye Disease

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Understanding Dry Eye Syndrome

What You Need to Know

Dry eye syndrome is more than just an occasional annoyance—it’s a chronic condition that affects your comfort, mood, and quality of life. From irritation to fluctuating vision, dry eyes can make daily activities like reading, working, or even enjoying time outdoors difficult. But with the right knowledge and care, relief is possible.

Dry eye occurs when there’s a lack of proper lubrication or moisture on the surface of your eyes. This can result from various factors, including:

Reduced tear production due to aging or certain medical conditions.
Increased tear evaporation caused by dry environments or screen time.
Imbalances in the makeup of your tears, leading to poor hydration of the eye’s surface.

A young businessman works for a long time at a laptop inside the office, the man drips drops into his eyes, eye pain. An Indian man sits with a laptop at the workplace

Risk Factors Can Include:

>40 years of age (although it is increasingly affecting children and young adults)
Digital device use
Unbalanced pro-inflammatory diet (lack of omega 3s)
Systemic conditions (e.g. diabetes, rosacea, arthritis, thyroid disease)
Medications (e.g. antihistamines, anti-depressants, diuretics, beta blockers, chemotherapy)

>40 years of age (although it is increasingly affecting children and young adults)
Digital device use
Unbalanced pro-inflammatory diet (lack of omega 3s)
Systemic conditions (e.g. diabetes, rosacea, arthritis, thyroid disease)
Medications (e.g. antihistamines, anti-depressants, diuretics, beta blockers, chemotherapy)
Female
Contact lens use
Use of eye makeup
Allergic sensitivities
Dry and dusty environments
History of eye surgeries (e.g. cataract, LASIK)
Inadequate water consumption

Female
Contact lens use
Use of eye makeup
Allergic sensitivities
Dry and dusty environments
History of eye surgeries (e.g. cataract, LASIK)
Inadequate water consumption

Interestingly, many with dry eye disease will complain of watery eyes. This is because the eyes reflexively water when bothered by the irritation. This attempts to compensate for how dry the eyes are. However, tears are mostly made of water – alone, they cannot properly coat the eye and fix dry eye.

A proper tear film that coats the eye is made of 3 layers: water, oil (lipid), and mucous. Water comes from tears produced in our lacrimal gland. The oil comes from our meibomian glands within our eyelids. Mucous comes from cells in the outermost layer of our eye, the conjunctiva.

In most cases, it is our meibomian glands that are not functioning properly or disappearing. Without proper oil in our tears, our eyes dry up quickly. The optometrist can use a special scan called meibography to see how well your glands are working, and customize a treatment plan for you.

Did you know?

A watery eye is a common sign of dry eye: Your body may overproduce tears to compensate for dryness.
Not all drops are the same! If you are using over-the-counter eye drops, please let your doctor know. Some are not meant to be used long-term or more than 4 times a day. Some also have more chemical preservatives that can irritate the eye in the long run.
20% of people experience varying degrees of dry eye, with females over 40 being at the highest risk.
Dry eye is becoming more and more common in children due to screens.
Sometimes you can have dry eyes without having any symptoms. It is important to treat it early to prevent worsening dry eye in the future.
Although there is no cure for dry eye, there are many ways to manage it so that it interferes less with your day-to-day activities.

Compared to other ocular conditions including macular degeneration, glaucoma, and retinal detachment, dry eye disease shows similar or higher risks for compromised quality of life.

Dry eye disease has a 1.54x risk of low physical health scores and a 1.39x risk of low mental health scores.