so if you've been experiencing irritated dry eyes while wearing a face mask
there's a good chance that you have made which stands for mask associated
dry eyes that's the new medical term for it
and today i've got five pro tips that'll help you with your dry eye symptoms
let's take a look
hello and welcome this is dr joseph allen here from the dr eye health show
helping you take care of your eyes and vision if you're new here to the
channel and like seeing your best then definitely consider hitting that
subscribe button down below now today we are talking all about a newer
phenomenon that's coming up in the media called
MADE mask associated dry eyes and that's a whole diagnosis that is new to
the field but makes sense it's because we are wearing
face masks all the time and our eyes are starting to experience
redness gritty sensation a foreign body almost even itchy burning sensation
that we associate with dry eye syndrome and hey in fact if you even
know somebody who says that they don't have dry eyes but their eyes are wet all
the time and they're frequently tearing throughout the day
in fact that is a symptom of dry eye syndrome and your eyes
are just reflex tearing to create more tears because your eye
your body already recognizes your eyes are dry the whole reason your eyes dry
out while wearing a mask is because when you breathe into the mask
the air flows up and then it hits the surface of the eye
and that increased air flow against the surface is going to increase
the evaporation of your tears from the eye and then the salt content lays
behind and that extra amount of salt changes
the osmolarity the whole homeostasis balance of the tears and
that therefore causes all of your burning
redness irritation symptoms it's for the same reason that if it's windy outside
you may be experiencing increased types of these symptoms so here are my five
quick tips that'll help you with your dry eyes from
mask associated dry eye tip number one is probably the easiest
if you can try to breathe through your nose
people who breathe through their mouths that air is going to hit the mask and go
straight up and that airflow is going to cause
more dryness for that same reason if you can if you have if you're at your
home or even a workplace try to avoid air conditioning or fans
that could be blowing directly onto the eye because that's again going to cause
the same problem tip number two is to make sure if you have a metal band to
put over your nose through your mask definitely make sure
that is tight that's gonna at least control some of the airflow and
additionally you can add extra padding to the mask by using a piece of tissue
paper folding that that should act a little bit like an air
dam so when you're breathing it won't go straight up over your eyes
this tip also works a little bit if your glasses wear and your glasses are
fogging up this also can help tip number three is a pretty classic tip
to use lubricating eye drops throughout the day
there are many different eye drops out there it is always best
as most eye doctors will recommend to look for one that is
non-preserved a preservative-free eye drop is going to be best because
you can use those threads many times throughout the day as you need to and
some people are allergic to the preservatives
in some types of eye drops in addition try to avoid
the get the red out drops as most of those get the red out drops have certain
medications in them that are pretty old and they actually
cause more damage to the eye than good specifically with rebound
redness and inflammation where your eyes seem to get redder and redder tip number
four is to consider picking up some brand of
moisture goggles there's several different brands and styles out there
my favorite happens to come from a brand called sienna these are
more typical looking glasses in fact you can have your eyeglasses prescription
put in them but they come with these silicone eye
shields that fit snugly around the eyes this works for anybody with dry eye
syndrome but it also protects the eyes from air
movement such as being outside as well as being
inside and from a face mask in addition if you want you can combine this
with fog stopper which i mentioned in a previous video
about stopping your lenses from fogging up due to a face mask so
you can combine those together and have like the ultimate setup
if you want to check out either the ziana moisture goggles or the fog
stopper solution i'll include links to those products in the video description
below and this whole link to the fog stopper
video that i recently released because i think that's going to help everybody
out if you're a glasses wear and tip number five is that if your home or
office has really low humidity especially coming up here in the winter
months when our furnaces are on things are really low for humidity and
that lower humidity is going to increase the evaporation of your cheers so
consider getting a humidifier that you can keep next to you
again whether it's in your office your bedroom or just at home because that'll
help get the humidity back to higher levels it's going to feel
more comfortable my health question for you today is which of the tips we're
sharing here today is most helpful for you and do you have
any other tips of your own to help with made mask associated dry eye thanks
again for watching this is dr joseph allen here from the dr ielts channel
if you want to learn a little bit more about dry eye disease in general as dry
eye syndrome goes i have a whole video series about that so you can click or
tap the screen up over here to decide if you want to learn a little bit more or
if you want to see another cool video from doctor eye health you can click or tap
the screen down over here thanks again so much for watching
keep an eye on it and we'll talk to you soon