Posted by: Associates in Ophthalmology (NJ) in Eye Health
Winter can be hard to get through for a whole lot of reasons. The snowy roads, the shorter days, and, of course, the cold, bitter and dry air.
Winter wind dries out your skin, leaving it itchy, cracked, and in pain. Like your skin, your eyes experience many of the same symptoms during winter.
Redness, swelling, itchiness, and pain are all telltale signs of dry eye. After all, dry eye is a condition that is greatly affected by your environment.
Fed up with your dry eye? Keep reading for tips to help make winter in 2019 easier to handle!
Control Your Environment
Your environment plays a role in the hydration of your eyes, especially during the winter. Here in Livingston, NJ, the weather can be particularly dry and cold.
While you can’t control the weather, you can control how you choose to heat your home and car!
There are three kinds of ways to transfer heat: conduction, radiation, and convection. With conduction, heat is directly transferred from the source of heat to the next object. Think of it like holding a cup of coffee.
With radiation, heat is emitted through empty space (think of how the sun heats up the Earth). Convection is the heat type you want to avoid. This is like blowing hot air which destroys moisture. Try to use space heaters that radiate heat instead.
You can also buy humidifiers for reasonable prices online to add moisture to the air. Having humidifiers in your home can help if your eyes are dry and scratchy.
To cover all your bases, seal up any cracks or openings causing drafts. This is an effortless way to make sure you’re not letting cold air in!
Use Eye Drops The Right Way
Using eye drops is a very easy task for most people, yet not a lot of people are doing it using the correct method! The wrong way: prying both eyelids open with one hand and aiming the applicator into your eye.
The correct way is easy: pull down on the lower lid of your eye and aim for the pocket you’ve created. Make sure to put in one drop at a time and wait for a few seconds. This ensures the drop has time to work its way around your eye.
Then if you need another drop, you won’t be flooding your eyes! When using the applicator, don’t let the tip touch anything. This especially means your eyes and hands!
Consider Gland Expression
Sometimes our eyes don’t produce tears the way they should. One common problem is the lack of oil in our tears.
The oil in our tears prevents the liquid from evaporating before lubricating the eye. The glands that produce this oil tend to become blocked up with a tacky residue.
These glands can be cleared out with a simple and safe procedure. Come into Associates in Ophthalmology to find out if it could work for you! Schedule your consultation today and say goodbye to the frustrations of your dry eye!
