are you waking up in the morning with your eyes feeling dry maybe they're red or
sticky or they feel like there's sandpaper in there or they're downright painful when
you wake up in this video we're going to go over the main reasons why your eyes might be dry when
you wake up and three pro tips to help with that morning dryness let's focus in hey howdy
everybody this is Dr. Neal Guymon, Dr. EyeGuy, and i do videos all about the eyes to help you
with your eyes whether it's eye education videos eye product reviews or answering your questions
in the comments below now first off let's go over the main reasons why your eyes might be extra dry
in the morning now the first main reason is definitely a given if you already have dry
eyes during the day if you have a dry eye disease dry eye syndrome you're definitely going to be
more prone to feeling that dry eyes a little extra in the morning the second reason might not be as
obvious but also very common in fact you might be experiencing it without even knowing it and that's
something called nocturnal lagophthalmos, where you sleep with your eyes slightly open now there
are many reasons for nocturnal logophthalmus that i can go in more detail in another video
it includes eyelid problems nerve problems bell's palsy and the list kind of goes on and on but like
i said very common and this might be something that you're experiencing now other possible
causes that might not be as common might involve cpap machines sometimes the air will leak out
the corner of the cpap machine and blow right under the eye all night long and that will dry
the eyes out floppy eyelid syndrome where people will sleep and their eyelid will actually flip
up a little bit again exposing that area of the eyeball and drying that out as well
so now let's get into the meat and potatoes of the video what can you actually do about the dry eyes
in the morning now before we get into the three pro tips let me give you the baseline ground work
that you can do to help your dry eyes now like i said before most people that have this already
have a dry eye condition going on so one of the big things you can do is go in to see your eye
doctor get your eyes checked see what type of dry eyes you might have and see what treatments might
work best for you during the day whether it's preservative free artificial tears prescription
eye drops like restasis or xiidra now speaking of drops if you want to be proactive during the day
you can use preservative-free artificial tears maybe four times a day definitely safe and then
maybe use an ointment or a gel at night kind of like celluvisc or sustain overnight therapy
the other baseline that i want to mention is hydration if you're dehydrated your eyes are
definitely going to be more dry during the day and especially in the morning when you wake up so make
sure that you're getting enough water the first pro tip and there are actually two tips involved
with this one the first one being trying to avoid any electronic use one to two hours before bedtime
the reason why i say this is if you're working on the computer looking at your phone ipads or
even watching tv we tend to blink a lot less and that causes your eyes to definitely dry out more
and you'll feel the effects of that in the morning the other one involves sleep setup if you like to
have a ceiling fan on or if you like to have a fan blowing right on your face see if you can still
sleep with the ceiling fan off or if that fan can be pointed somewhere else because like i said
if you are someone that sleeps with their eyes slightly open that extra air blown into your eye
will dry your eyes out even further if you wanted to take a step further you can replace those
fans with a humidifier which can keep your eyes a little bit more moist at night pro tip number two
involves keeping your eyelids tip top shape eyelid hygiene now during the day your eyelids might
accumulate debris they might have blepharitis they might be inflamed and so at nighttime if you can
take care of your eyelids clean off that debris the better you will be in the morning here's the
routine that i would do if you're a makeup wearer definitely remove the makeup before you go to bed
use eyelid wipes or eyelid cleansing foams clean off the debris from the eyelashes clean
the bacteria that might be on the eyelids that might help with the inflammation as well i just
did a video about eyelid wipes definitely check that out warm compresses definitely a big one you
want to get those oils and your oil glands flowing definitely make them more liquid so they can come
out a little bit easier you can do eyelid massages as long as you're careful and gentle and if you're
doing that in conjunction with your eye doctor's treatments and i would use a hypochlorous acid
solution spray that you can spray on there to help control overpopulation of any bacteria if you do
these things at night right before you go to bed it'll definitely help and improve your symptoms
you might have in the morning when you wake up pro tip number three would be to use moisture chamber
goggles or anything else that might reduce the exposure from the air to your eyeball
especially if you're someone dealing with nocturnal lag of thermals there are a few
tricks that you can do to reduce the exposure while you're sleeping one would be to actually
tape the eyelid shut i know that sounds crazy but it actually works and helps a lot of people
i would definitely use the skin tape if you're going to do that not just like regular tape or
duct tape that would not be comfortable i'll put a link in the description below if you want to
pick some of the skin tape up another one would be as simple as using a sleep mask sometimes just
having that sleep mask will push the eyelids down a little bit and force you to not sleep with your
eyes slightly open and also at the same time that sleep mask will block some of the exposure that
you're getting from the air now if you want to take it to the next level you can use moisture
chamber goggles this is just one example this is a tranquileyes heat mask actually so kind of has
a double benefit there you can use this for warm compresses and also use it at night that you can
sleep with them on as moisture chamber goggles they have a few different designs there are some
different designs that are a little bit smaller maybe a little bit more comfortable for sleeping
in but they actually work quite well and don't be afraid right when you wake up reach
for those preservative-free artificial tears put them right in the eye right when you wake
up and it can make the eyes feel fresh get the eyelids moving around and will help and lessen
or dampen the symptoms that you might be experiencing now if you need a little extra help
or guidance with dry eye treatments eyelid hygiene definitely check out my playlist right there and
also subscribe for my future videos right there i'm Dr. Neal Guymon, Dr. EyeGuy stay focused