There are many reasons why your eyes can feel sore, itchy, dry, aching, watery. And while it’s true there are many serious eye diseases that can cause these symptoms, most people suffer from just a few common reasons.
At Ashburton Eyecare, we can treat eye allergies, dry eye, and whatever else is bothering your eyes. Once we have made the diagnosis, appropriate management can be put in place.
Allergy Eyes
Melbourne can be a harsh environment for eyes. We’re known as the allergy capital of the world. It’s these allergic reactions that cause the itch as your eyes release histamine and other chemicals that generally make your eyes feel annoyed.
The best way to prevent allergy eyes is to avoid the allergen. However this is not always possible as many allergens are simply in the air around us.
Chronic allergy eyes may be treated with a range of pharmaceuticals including:
- Artificial tears (to wash out the allergen)
- Anti-histamine eye drops
- Mast Cell stabilisers
- Corticoseroids of varying strengths
Optometrists at Ashburton Eyecare are therapeutically endorsed to prescribe the eye medicines you need. Once the diagnosis is made, an appropriate prescription can be given, along with practical advice about allergy avoidance.
Lifestyle
When using a computer screen for long periods we tend to blink less, which increases the tendency for dry eye.
In addition, our urban lifestyle usually means either the air-conditioning or heating is on for a good portion of the year. Dehumidified air can also directly cause the tears on the eyes to evaporate.
Dry Eye
In mild forms of evaporative dry eye, diagnosis can often be made during the initial consultation, however in moderate to severe evaporative dry eye we recommend a second diagnostic consultation dedicated to dry eye.
This consultation lasts 90 minutes and at the end, a treatment regime can be recommended. Treatment is aimed at providing relief from the dry eye symptoms by repairing the glands and tear function. Treatment is usually daily home therapy along with our Blephasteamin-house treatments.
The aqueous deficiency form of dry eye is less common and often there is simply a lack of volume of tears. Three ways to assist are:
- artificial tear supplements
- implanting plugs into the tear duct
- prescription of Cyclosporin, which increases tear production.
All these may be prescribed or actioned at Ashburton Eyecare.
Watery Eyes
Ironically, watery eyes are a common symptom of dry eye! We always tell patients that if the tears are on their cheeks they’re not doing the eyes much good.
Watery eyes have many causes ranging from dry eye to blocked tears ducts, malpositioned eyelids, and allergies.
Your Ashburton Eyecare optometrist will be able to diagnose the cause of your particular dry eye and then treat accordingly.
