Dry Eye Or Computer Vision Syndrome

Hello,

I am Dr. Ruchi, an ophthalmologist. Today I want to tell you something about a very common problem that we are coming across in practice is the dry eye syndrome or the computer vision syndrome. Commonly patients come to us with the complaint of watering and itching and foreign body sensation in the eyes, often on redness coming on and when we check them up it is basically just the allergies or dry eyes problems. which are happening due to the pollution and the dust and the environment and certain diseases like arthritis or vitamin A deficiency and lot many other problems and diseases. When we check this computer vision syndrome or dry eye syndrome. We have to check a few things in that, why the computer vision syndrome is labeled so? because everything is computerized nowadays, so people are blue bond to the screens, be it the computer screen or be it on the mobile, be it the child or the adult, everybody is glued to the computer screen.

What happens on the computer screen when we are watching the screen as we are blinking very less and keep our eyes open a lot and as a result of which the formation of the tears is deficient and the evaporation also becomes faster because the tear film by the blinking of the eyes that tear remains stable and when we are not blinking because of the exposure to the air and dust, tear film evaporates much faster. So we have to do these tests to assess whether it's a simple allergy or is this allergy because of the dryness, dry eye syndrome or the computer vision syndrome and there are few simple tests that we do for it. Basically what you should know is that there is one oil film which coats on the tear film, which prevents evaporation of the liquid part of the tear film. So we see that with age and with the other problems, the lids also turn out or they become inverted and all and meibomian gland dystrophy takes place. So when these meibomian glands which are the basic glands which secrete the oil part of the tear film, when they become deficient or they do not function properly.

So the oil secretion of the tear film reduces as a result of which the liquid part of the film evaporates very easily and very quickly. Particularly more so in the people who have too glued to the screens and the pollution also. So when the patient comes first step we have to study is the meibomian gland study, which is done by photography and assessing the meibomian gland and certain other tests, very simple test like the Rose Bengal or the fluorescent test and the schirmer test, which are hardly 2-2 minutes, 5-5 minutes tests which take very short duration, very short while to assess the tear film and the basic treatment for the tear film deficiency is lubricating drops or artificial tears and also it is aided by the antioxidants particularly the Omega 3 fatty acids.

Initially, it was suspected that Omega 3 acids are available only from the fish or the animal product but it is now seen that even certain plant sources are there. So you need not think that Omega 3 is only a non-veg product but also a plant product. So it is advisable that if you having these allergies or redness, frequent watering, dryness or itching. So please go for the dry eye testing or the computer vision testing and take the lubricants and antioxidants and the Omega 3 fatty acids.

Thank you!