Did you know that Southern Alberta and Saskatchewan are some of the driest environments in Canada? If you are like me and suffer from dry eyes then you are probably not surprised. A recent survey done by the Alberta Association of Optometrists indicates that as many as 70% of Albertan’s suffer from some type of dry eye related symptoms. Dry eyes can result from many different factors and typically are a combination of a few.
Poor Blink rate - here is a fun experiment you can do on your peers, go find someone in your work place and have a conversation with them face to face. While conversing try and count how many times they blink in 10 or 30 second intervals. You will find it is usually about 1-2 blinks every couple seconds if not more. Now do the exact same thing except without telling them what you are doing, have them read some type of interesting or engaging article online and count the blinks. Did you notice that the amount of blinking is significantly less than before? This is extremely common and can result in significant dry eye symptoms like watery, burning or stinging eyes and even blurry vision. No problem, just blink more when your on the computer right? Problem solved! Except that your nervous system actually inhibits your blink reflex when you perform visually attentive tasks and it is a very difficult task to train someone to blink more frequently when they are focusing.
Meibomian Gland Dysfunction - I could go on for hours talking about this but ill give you the quick and dirty: The meibomian glands protect your tear film from evaporating, so when your not blinking your tears are actively dissolving into the air and depending on the amount of meibum in your tears, the time for your eyes to start stinging from dryness will vary. This is relatively easy to solve by doing hot compresses.