How did I find out I had dry eyes?

Dry eyes and fatigue are common eye problems for many people. As electronic products gradually penetrate into every aspect of our lives, our small eyes are under increasing pressure. The words "dry eyes" or "dry eye syndrome" appear more and more frequently. Some people are deeply in self-doubt: "Do I seem to have it? I don't seem to have it?" If you keep struggling, you may miss the best time for early diagnosis and treatment. So how do you judge whether you have dry eyes?

First of all, self-examination and regular physical examinations are the first step in diagnosing whether you have dry eyes. Han Honglin, a dry eye clinician in the ocular surface department of Zhengzhou Aier Eye Hospital, said: Sometimes, some seemingly conditioned reflex behaviors may be signals from the body, such as blinking, rubbing eyes, and crying in the wind. If accompanied by symptoms such as eye stinging, dryness, soreness, fatigue, and foreign body sensation, then it may be dry eyes. In addition, in medicine, patients who have no subjective symptoms but have physical signs in doctor's examination are also classified as dry eyes, which requires regular eye examinations for early prevention and treatment.

According to Han Honglin from the Dry Eye Clinic at Zhengzhou Aier Eye Hospital, dry eyes require professional examinations to be diagnosed. Because there are many causes of dry eyes, different causes correspond to different treatments. Only after the cause is determined can symptomatic treatment be given. In addition, the patient's main symptoms and eye signs may be similar to other diseases, or may be affected by multiple diseases. This also requires a doctor's professional examination to determine.

Clinically, the diagnosis and treatment plan is generally determined based on the doctor's initial interview and appropriate dry eye examination of the patient. The instrument can improve the examination efficiency and the patient's examination comfort. Through non-invasive real-time examination of tear meniscus height, tear film breakup time, meibomian glands, and tear film lipid layer, the type of dry eye and whether there is meibomian gland dysfunction can be determined, and quantitative data analysis of the degree of dry eye can be provided. In addition, by examining the cornea, conjunctival cells, nerve morphology distribution and meibomian gland function, the ocular surface changes of dry eye patients can be evaluated at the cellular level to provide guidance for treatment and outcome.

The causes of dry eyes are complex. If you have related symptoms, do not take medication at will. You must go to a regular ophthalmology hospital for examination and diagnosis and receive standardized treatment according to the doctor's instructions.

References:

[1] Asian Dry Eye Association China Chapter, Ocular Surface and Tear Disease Group of the Ophthalmology Committee of the Cross-Strait Medical and Health Exchange Association, Ocular Surface and Dry Eye Group of the Ophthalmology Branch of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association. Chinese dry eye expert consensus: examination and diagnosis (2020) [J]. Chinese Journal of Ophthalmology, 2020, 56(10):741-747.

[2] Li Qian, Xue Jinsong, Jiang Qin. Application of Oculus ocular surface analyzer in the diagnosis of dry eye[J]. Chinese Journal of Practical Ophthalmology, 2016, 34(009):953-957.

[3] Yang Fan, Wu Qiong, Kang Yang, et al. Confocal microscopy observation of ocular surface structure in evaporative dry eye[J]. Progress in Modern Biomedicine, 2014, 14(015):2893-2896.