Blink.
If you are reading this and haven?t blinked in the last minute, your eyes may be hurting.
Dry eye, a condition where the body can?t produce enough tears to keep the eye moist, is most common in women who work at computers or do a lot of reading during the day, said Dr. Esen Akpek of Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute in Baltimore.
“Any type of environmental condition that increases the evaporation from the eye surface makes this worse,” Akpek said, “jobs that require near-tasks, like working on a computer or reading.”
Chronic dry eye affects more than 20 million Americans, according to nonprofit National Women?s Health Resource Center, mainly women and older men. Untreated, it can cause infection or impaired vision.
Nurse Elizabeth Battaglino Cahill, executive vice president of the NWHRC, continues to urge women who may be experiencing dry eye symptoms to take action and seek help from an optometrist or their doctor. Thetop professions that cause dry eye are office, construction, health care, education, retail, public service and transportation jobs. More than 60 percent of sufferers don?t take those symptoms seriously enough to share with their physician.
Optometrists can measure the severity by testing tears for how quickly they break down and measuring output of the tear glands, Akpek said.
Remedies begin with imitation teardrops and anti-glare glasses, Akpek said. The problem worsens if your computer monitor is higher than your eye level, forcing the eye to open wider. Dry, dusty or poorly ventilated offices and neon lighting also are culprits. The best remedy is blinking, Akpek said.
