How Far is Eye Dryness from Us?

When the skins send the message of being thirsty, you would spread moisturizer on them. However, have you ever noticed the thirsty message sent by your eyes? Eyes feel dry, itchy, red, tired, and so on. All these signs warn us. If you are not strange to these signs, you should be cautious from now on. Maybe your eyes have already gotten harm and developed into eye dryness (Xerophthalmia).

As the fast development of the modern society, computers, air-conditioners, and contact lenses are widely used by us, so that the rate of getting dry eyes is becoming higher and higher, especially among the young people and students.

What is eye dryness? Normally speaking, the lacrimal gland would secrete enough tears, and through blinking, tears would be evenly spread onto the cornea and conjunctiva to form the tear film which could have the function of moistening the eyes and increasing the resistance ability of the eyes. But for people who have eye dryness, the amount and quality of tears would decrease, so that it will influence the stability of the tear film on the eyeballs, and finally certain symptoms occur, such as eye dryness, fear of light, eye itch, red eyes, and eye fatigue.

If you feel discomfort in eyes in your daily life, you ought to think of its possible causes. Usually, when you focus on something, you will forget to blink your eyes, so that the cornea would be exposed in the air for over long time which may exceed the limit of tear break-up time; therefore, your eye dryness would be particularly obvious.

Eye dryness belongs to the chronic eye diseases. Due to its small influence to the daily work and life, it is always neglected. Here are several points of causing eye dryness.

1. It is popular to describe people’s concentration by “focus without blinking”. But it is seldom known to people that the long time of using the eyes would reduce the times of blinking the eyes and may cause eye dryness. The less times of blinking, the higher risk it has to develop into dry eyes. Generally speaking, blinking helps to the secretion and spread of tears. If the times of blinking reduce, it will directly lead to the decease of tear amount; and at the same time, the tear film exposed in the air would evaporate quickly and lose the protective ability to the eyeballs. Thus, too long time of operating computers, driving, and reading all could cause eye dryness.

2. There is no one who doesn’t love beauty. Especially young people who would like to wear contact lenses to improve their appearance. However, it also brings a lot of pains, including eye dryness. Wearing contact lenses for a long time will reduce the amount of secreted tears.

3. Air-conditioner’s dehumidifying function is also one cause of dry eyes. Nowadays, nearly every office has been air-conditioned. The working environment of being cool in summer and warm in winter is comfortable; but the air-conditioners not only could adjust the temperature, but also are able to dehumidify the air. In the dry circumstance, the tear film would evaporate even more quickly and the eyes are easier to become dry and unsmooth.

Therefore, think about it-how far is eye dryness away from you? Before it happens, you may do something.