Good vision requires healthy eyes, and the first step is keeping them hydrated, just like your skin. Blinking often enough to refresh the thin film of tears across the surface of your eyes is vital, but often when we concentrate on digital gadgets we tend to blink far less than we should.
Modern day life comes with lots of things to concentrate on. Every day, we are focused on our laptop screens, our phones, on the road when we’re driving – the list goes on. When we concentrate hard on something, we blink much less. The number of blinks we make per minute can reduce by as much as 80%.
This can lead to our eyes becoming dry, sore and inflamed. This condition is called Dry Eye, and affects at least 1 in 5 adults. You may not even realise you have this problem and just think you have tired eyes at the end of your computer, phone or gaming session.
The key symptom of dry eye is a feeling of dryness and grittiness that makes you want to rub your eyes. However, any of these below may also indicate that you have Dry Eye:
Here’s a quick test that can also help to indicate if you have dry eye.
Blink twice and then slowly count the numbers shown below. If you can’t get to ten without needing to blink then you may have dry eye:
The main consequence of untreated dry eye is ongoing discomfort and irritation. However, continued inflammation related to Dry Eye can lead to more serious damage to the delicate surface of your eyes that requires medical treatment.
The good news is dry eye is easily managed. In a similar way to managing skin that is prone to dryness, for your eyes you can apply lubricating eye drops to prevent symptoms. Leading optometrist Sarah Farrant MCOptom explains, “It’s simple to use lubricant drops for dry eye, which can help to hydrate the eye surface and keep the eyes a lot more comfortable.”
The best treatment is to use lubricant drops that are preservative free. Sarah Farrant says, “For eyes that are tired and sore, really you want to look at a drop that is preservative free. There is a lot of research that shows having preservatives in eye drops can be quite toxic for chronic treatments, so we know that avoiding preservatives for Dry Eye relief is a really good idea.”
One type of preservative free drop is Thealoz® Duo, which also offers the following benefits:
“Easier than drops for my watery eyes”
Peter, Staffordshire
“Better than other eye drops”
Alisa, Stoke on Trent
“Best Dry Eye product!”
Tracey, West Midlands
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