What is Dry Eye?
Tears are essential for the eye as the cornea does not have any blood vessels. It absorbs nutrients from tears to function. Losing tears in your eye does not only make it dry but also harms your eye sight and function. These tears cleanse your eyes and wash off harmful bacteria and not having tears can be a problem; and is commonly referred to as dry eye.
Dry eyes, also known as Meibomian Gland Dysfunction is one of the most irritating eye problems that someone can come across. There are various ways of countering this problem, but we suggest going for a dry eye mask. The dry eye mask helps cover the eye when the glands stop producing the right amount of oils for the tears. Applying a heated eye mask is just what you need if you have a similar problem.
Understanding Meibomian Gland Dysfunction
Before we go ahead, we want to discuss the details of the disease so that you may understand what you might be dealing with. Meibomian Gland Dysfunction (MGD) is an eye disorder in which the oils of the tears in your eye become dysfunctional. Mebibomian glands are the ones that produce this oil in your eye and keep your tears balanced and your eye moist.
The oil helps produce a protective layer around the tear and stops it from evaporating inside the eye. These glands slowly release the oil into the eye so that the process is slow and smooth. This whole system works over the simple concept of density because oil rises above water in general.
Symptoms of Dry Eye
Following are some of the symptoms that a person suffering from dry eye might experience. Check the list below and see how many of these symptoms you can relate to.
- Burning, uncomfortable sensation
- Stringy mucus in the eye area
- Sensitivity to light
- Red Eye
- Discomfort in the eye
- Difficulty with contact lenses
- Difficulty with driving at night
- Watery eyes
- irritation of dry eyes
- Blurred vision or eye fatigue
What Can You Do About It?
The best way to deal with a dry eye is to heat the oil inside the eye because heating the area increases oil production. This oil moisturizes the eye and leads to a balanced tear production to reduce the dry eye problem. The method has proven to be helpful and following are some of the benefits of using a dry eye mask.
Benefits of Using Dry Eye Mask
Using a dry eye mask can have a few other benefits than making your eye produce more tears. We have listed some of them below
Helps Reduce Blepharitis
Blepharitis is an eye disease that causes inflammation in the eye lids. This inflammation affects eye sight and is quite painful. There are three kinds of Blepharitis that you should know about
- Anterior
- Posterior
- Mixed
The Anterior Blepharitis is caused by the bacteria in the skin of your eye. The position of the inflammation defines what kind of Blepharitis a person may have. For instance, if you have inflammation on the front end of your eye then it is called Anterior Blepharitis. You may also experience if you have a flaky skin around your eye area because it blocks the Meibomian glands.
The posterior Blepharitis occurs when the Meibomian glands get blocked and the oil starts entering the eye. Mixed Blepharitis is a combination of the both in position and symptoms.
A dry eye heat mask helps unblock the eye passage and increase the oil production to increase regulation inside the eye. The balanced eye oil makes it easier for the eye to produce tears again and reduce dry eye.
Helps Fight Conjunctivitis
Conjunctivitis is commonly known as pink eye and is a common disease that most people encounter at least once in their lives. Doctors prescribe dry eye masks or antibiotics for treating Conjunctivitis because the heat regulation in the eye helps fight the condition. Some doctors also prescribe using both the mask and medicines against Conjunctivitis for a speedier recovery.
The dry eye mask helps reduce the discomfort because of Conjunctivitis, while the antibiotics help fight the infection inside the eye.
Helps Reduce Stye
A stye is a small lump on the skin of an eyelid; these styes can also form under the eye lid and are quite painful in most cases. Styes usually cause the eyes to water more and cause redness; fortunately, using a dry eye mask can help reduce the discomfort of styes until things get back to normal.
Other Conditions You Should Know
It is important to understand that dry eye masks aren’t for the extreme eye problems that we mentioned above.
Environment and Smoke
You could have eye problems because of environmental issues such as smoke and dust. Tears serve as a cleansing agent inside the eye as we have mentioned before. You can use a dry eye mask to increase the tear production in your eye which will wash off the impurities from your eye making it healthier.
Allergies
Eye allergies are not uncommon and a great way to tackle them is to use a dry eye mask. Using eye mask for dry eyes at night is exactly what you need if you want to reduce your chances of encountering puffy and red eyes. It might also help you reduce pain, irritation and other eye related day to day issues.
In A Nutshell
Using a dry eye mask for your eye problems is undoubtedly one of the best ways to improve your eye health. We suggest taking the time out and researching more on these dry masks if you still haven’t tried one. It will help you understand more benefits of using these dry eye masks regularly and help you maintain your eye functions for years to come.
