Do You Cry Over Your Dry Eyes? Get to Know the Reasons

Your eye dryness is basically caused by two reasons and the first one being lack of tears and the second one being not enough of tears.

Your eyes might have lost its ability to produce tears or the secreted tears may not be sufficient enough to lubricate the eye surface or the tears so produced lack in its lubricating properties.

There is one more reason, though very rare, that cause eye dryness is that your eyes may not get the tears where it wanted.

In case your eyes lack in its ability to produce sufficient tears, then the condition is known as KCS or keratoconjunctivitis sicca, medically.

You may normally contract KCS condition in both eyes but there are reported cases about person getting the condition worse in one eye.

Age factor plays a major role in deficient production of tears and as you grow old, your eyes will produce lesser tears and the amount will further get reduced, as you grow further in your age.

Similar to your skin or hair, the tear producing mechanism will also show signs of “drying up” as you become old and you may shed only fewer tears. Here, shedding lesser tears can never be celebrated!

Many people fail to notice the reduction in their tear production but in few cases the tear production may stop abruptly thus leading to irritation, the classic dry-eye symptoms, burning sensation in eyes, gritty feeling, redness and eye fatigue.

In older women occurrence of KCS is more may be due to the reason of changing hormonal levels.There is also a possibility for reduction in tear production due to certain diseases or any injuries.

If a person is subjected to trauma or some infection, then the situation will cause injury to the tear secreting glands namely lacrimal glands, and the injury may be either temporary or permanent in nature.

A yet another debilitating condition by name Bell’s palsy, where in the facial nerves are getting affected, the tear production may also stop or get reduced.

The classic symptom of Bell’s palsy, is that the patient will find it difficult to close one eye or difficulty in blinking on one of the sides of the face. The combination of stopped blinking coupled with lesser tear production will result in eye dryness.

Besides the injury and other diseases, your body’s autoimmune system can also interfere with your tear production. For example, Sjogren’s syndrome, which is considered as an autoimmune disorder, will result in dryness in eye, dryness in mouth and joint pain.

There are other autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma and systemic lupus erythematosus that are normally identified with dry eyes.

If you have a dry eye problem due to certain diseases, then the condition is referred as secondary Sjogren's syndrome and certain other systemic diseases such as leukemia, sarcoidosis, lymphoma, and chronic thyroid problems will often result in reduced tear production.

In few people, though rare, certain medications will hamper tear production process. For instance, medicines such as antihistamines and decongestants taken for managing cold and allergies may dry out everything, including your tears.

People who take medicines such as Diuretics for controlling their blood pressure also tend to get their tear production decreased.

Further, certain therapies for hormone replacement, consumption of birth control pills, medications used for eye dilation, oral acne medicines, medicines used for inhibiting motion sickness, antidepressants, and opiate-based pain medications can certainly reduce tear production leading to eye dryness.

Even in the event of your eyes producing enough tears, you may still feel the dryness in your eyes and this may be due to the poor quality of tears produced.

Each drop of tear is produced to protect and lubricate your eye and if the chemical content of the teardrop get altered then also you may experience eye dryness.

The teardrop contains lipids and mucin and any disease affecting your body or eyes may result in reduction of these ingredients in your tears thereby reducing the “quality” of your tears.

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