There Is Hope For Your Dry Eye Condition

There Is Hope For Your Dry Eye Condition : Your eyes make your daily life more meaningful and enjoyable. Through your eyes, you see things and send the message to your brain for a reaction. When your eyes are in pain, it becomes hard to concentrate on your daily activities, affecting your life.

Luckily your Bourbonnais general optometry specialist can help eliminate your eye pain so that you can continue to see the beauty of what the world has to offer.

What Causes Dry Eye

Dry eye is caused by many factors including:

Aging: As you grow old, your eyes produce fewer tears.
Environmental conditions: If you are exposed to dust, wind, smoke, or heat, it may affect your eye tear production.
Medication: If you are taking antidepressants, nasal decongestants, or antihistamines, they can cause dry eyes.
Less blinking: If you spend a lot of time on the computer, smartphone, playing computer games, and watching TV, you tend to blink less, causing your eyes to have less tear coating.

When to see your doctor for dry eye treatment

When you experience the following symptoms, you need to visit your eye doctor to avoid severe damage to your eyes. Itchy eyes, burning eyes, blurry vision, painful eyes, eyes turning red, experiencing stinging sensation in your eyes, and sensitivity to light.

Dry eye diagnosis

Your doctor will conduct an eye examination after finding out your medical history. Your doctor will further recommend the following tests to be carried out. These include:

Tear break-up time

Your doctor will place fluorescein into your eye and, using a special light, he will determine how long your tears take to break. Your doctor will do the test before you use any eye drops for more accurate results. Your doctor will repeat the test three times and take the average to be the best result.

The Schirmer test

The test is done to determine the amount of tears produced at a given time. It is also used to check how much a disease has progressed. Your doctor will do this by placing a unique strip of paper at the edge of your lower eyelid.

Fluorescein

Your doctor will recommend this test to determine the effect or dryness in your eye surface by straining your eye using a dye.

Treatment of dry eye

Depending on the outcome of your diagnosis and the root cause of your dry eye, your doctor may recommend the following treatment.

Change your lifestyle
If environmental factors cause your dry eye, your doctor will recommend wearing your eyeglasses and changing them as required. Taking a break after every twenty minutes and exercising your eyes by gazing twenty feet away for twenty seconds will help if you work on the computer for long hours.
Medication
Your doctor may prescribe either eye drops or oral medication for your dry eyes. For tear production, your doctor may recommend Restasis. Your doctor may recommend Xiidra to clear the inflammation, which is the root cause, to help in the common tears production problem.

For more details about dry eye treatment, call or book an appointment online with Nicholas Rutkowski, O.D.