Dry Eyes - Leesburg, Eustis, Clermont

An increasingly common condition, dry eyes may arise from the natural aging process, certain medications, or dryness in the environment. Here, Dr. Jeffrey A. Sheridan talks about the causes, symptoms, and treatment options of dry eyes in Leesburg, Eustis, and Clermont.

DR. JEFFREY A. SHERIDAN: Dry eyes is a very common problem. We see it almost exploding in the numbers of people with dry eyes as we mature. If we get past our 30's into our 40's and 50's, dryness of the eyes becomes very common. It's associated with maturity. It's associated with medications, particularly high blood pressure medications, but many others, hormone pills. And it's a very common problem here in Florida. Particularly, you think, oh in the humid air, it would be less of a problem. But we spend a lot of our time in the air conditioning, the dry air. The ceiling fans, air vents in the car, all those things that circulate air tend to dry the eyes out. People that tend to use the computer quite a bit or read tend to blink less. And so their eyes tend to dry out very frequently. Tearing is one of the most common symptoms of dry eyes. It is surprising. It's somewhat ironic. But when you are lacking tears and the eyes get so dry that they send a message to the brain that they're lacking the tears, then oftentimes there's reflex tearing. And many people come in with excessive tearing and think that there's a problem with their tear drainage. But the problem is that they're not producing tears on a constant basis. And they are overproducing it intermittently because their eyes are drying out intermittingly. There are many treatments now that we did not have available to us years ago. There are numerous types of artificial tears or lubricating drops that are available. And there's new medication that can actually improve the dryness of the eyes, to the point that some people have dry eyes that can't wear contact lenses, we can give them medication drops that they can use for a while and actually can start to wear contact lenses again. When you finally tell--figure out the problem when a person comes in when they're having burning of their eyes and itching and intermittent tearing and blurring even, and you find that their eyes are dry and you can put them on the path to improving their tear film, improving their tears, they're much happier.