Symptoms
Most of us experience dry eye at some time. Dry eye makes itself felt as a sensation of burning or dryness. Your eyes feel warm, dry and tired, and sometimes you get a gritty feeling. Often you are over-sensitive to bright light.
What causes dry eye?
Your eye is protected and lubricated by a thin film of tears, which is protected from evaporation by an oily lipid layer secreted by glands on your eyelids. It is when the tear film becomes reduced and unstable that dry eye symptoms occur.
There are two main causes of dry eye syndrome. One is where the tear production mechanism is not functioning correctly. The other, called evaporative dry eye, is where the protective lipid layer over the surface of the tear has become unstable, leading to excessive evaporation. Around 80% of dry eyes are caused by this evaporative dry eye syndrome - the lipid layer has become deficient or disturbed, allowing the tear layer to evaporate and irritation to occur.
Environmental and lifestyle influences
Evaporative dry eye has become increasingly common in everyday life, particularly for those wearing contact lenses or working in an air conditioned office or building. Constant gazing at a PC screen further accentuates the problem as computer users tend to blink much less frequently - about 7 times per minute compared to a normal rate of around 22 times per minute. This leads to increased evaporation along with the associated fatigue and eyestrain. The pollution in towns, or long car and plane journeys, caffeine consumption and smoking all contribute too.
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