in this video I'm going to explain what causes watery eyes as well sharing how
to stop frequent tearing and the number one best
remedy for watery eyes that I use in the eye clinic let's take a look
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hey Eyes and Shine my friends. Dr Allen here from the Dr Eye Health show helping you learn
everything about the eyes and keeping them healthy. so if you're somebody who struggles
with watery tearing eyes whether it be in both eyes or maybe just one eye at a time it can be
really frustrating and unsightly people can often even ask you why you're crying why your
face is always wet and unfortunately in the Eye Care Community if you go in to see an eye doctor
sometimes they tell you a weird answer they'll in fact tell you that you have dry eyes and you're
probably thinking wait no my eyes are not dry they are wet and while it is true that sometimes your
eyes do water in response to dryness it is not always the case and I see a lot of young doctors
make the mistake of saying it's dry eye without investigating further of other common causes and
the number one cause of watery eyes that I look for in the clinic is that of a blocked tear duct
and this is something that you can have in both eyes but I'll tell you uh it's something that if
you have one watery eye this is probably my top differential because your team here's a generated
here in the lacrimal gland and then the tears flow and get pushed by the eyelids when you blink
down toward the punctum and then the tears drain into the nasolacrimal drainage system here and
ultimately your tears then flow down and absorb through your nasal mucosa in fact that's why
when somebody cries they have a runny nose because their tears flow and then drain out through their
nose however if there's a blockage anywhere in the nasolacrimal drainage system here then tears
aren't going to be able to drain the tears are just going to build up on the eye and that's going
to overflow down the eyelid and down the face blockage of the nasol drain system occurs for
multiple reasons it can be just simply age it can also be due to Medical Treatments such as either
radiotherapy or chemotherapy for cancer also some eye drop medications like those for glaucoma but
also largely due to inflammatory reasons such as maybe an infection or blepharitis or buildup of
oils and skin cells as well as bacteria on along the eyelids and I hate to say it but even dry
AI has been implicated as being a potential cause of this it is also possible for some people to
have an active infection of the nasolacomose sac that we call a decryocystitis and oftentimes it's
pretty easy to even self-diagnose to some degree if you push here on your lacrimal Sac next to
your nose and kind of push up toward the eye you can push on the candyliculi here and basically
push out pus that'll come out of the punctum and that's how we diagnose that and then you
definitely need an antibiotic in that case also from infections people can develop dacryoliths
which are small concretions of calcium that build up in the nasol system but otherwise again a lot
of the blockages occur due to inflammation and that leads to the frequent tearing or epiphera
which is the medical term for tearing of the eye in the eye clinic an eye doctor can often test if
there is proper drainage by doing what's called A Jones test where we put fluorescein sodium in
this inferior cul-de-sac here and then we monitor how fast it's resolving or how fast it's draining
and then if your doctor is concerned that there is a blood blockage they can do what's called a
dilation in irrigation where we use a irrigating solution and basically pump that through the nasal
lacrimal system so that in salt water saline solution drains and you can taste in the back
of your throat oftentimes if there is a blockage the irrigation solution will basically push that
blockage down and through the drainage canal and it opens up and basically solves your problem I
would say that's probably the number one remedy for constant tearing is just having your nasal
lacrimal system flushed it's pretty amazing to me how many patients will just thank me so
much because they finally did this after seeing multiple doctors I know not every doctor likes
due to dilation irrigation but it's something that I find just helps a lot of my patients
and definitely let me know in the comment section if you've had irrigation of your lacrimal system
or if you think it's something you may need unfortunately if we do find that there is a
blockage and we can't clear it with the irrigation or something simple there in the clinic alone then
we do have to refer for more invasive surgery to clear that out and find out what's causing
it now another common cause of tearing on the the eye has to do with drainage issues and by
drainage issues this could be a couple of things but it mainly means that tears are not being
siphoned along the eyelid over to the punctum to drain collect correctly in the first place
one of the more common causes I see in older individuals is something called an ectropion
and this can be mild or severe but this lower eyelid starts to fall away from the globe and
so tears pull up and end up just kind of draining off of the eyelid straight down
the face another issue that I see more commonly even in young people has to do with what's called
conjunctivalchalasis and that's where this clear membrane on the front surface of the eye called
the conjunctiva becomes inflamed and redundant and then it ends up growing over and kind of
flopping over the lower eyelid a little bit and that prevents the tears from properly flowing to
the nose and a lot of times you can tell this just by looking at somebody because the tears
aren't flowing here by the nose instead the tears are kind of flowing here by the side of their face
again because the tears aren't even allowed to flow toward the nose they're just kind of hitting
that conj and then flowing out with somebody with an ectropion typically we do need to refer that
for surgery repair otherwise for conjunctival chalasis we can try conservative treatment by
reducing the inflammation on the eye trying to get that conch to kind of tighten up on its own
otherwise a lot of the time we do also have to refer that out just so that they can excise that
conch tissue and then get it to again tighten up surgically in addition to these frequent
medical causes that of just allergies if it is usually Springtime or fall people who have
allergic reactions to pollen and other antigens in the air this can cause irritation to the eyes
causing them to turn red inflame the eyelids causing them to swell as well as the surface
of the eye and then your body just in a reaction creates More Tears trying to flush any of those
antigens down to the lacrimal sac and get those out of the body and allergies typically present
with other symptoms right including itchy eyes maybe a runny nose or sinus congestion maybe
wheezing Hard Times breathing that sort of thing but oftentimes in the case of an ocular allergy
where your eyes are getting puffy red irritated then yes using lubricating artificial tears can
help cold compresses are conservative treatment but right now we have two eye drop medications
that are now available over the a counter here in the U.S that work fantastic one of them is called
pad today and one's called elastic caft they both come in a one day drop formulation that you can
buy over the counter and usually it takes care of a lot of the itching symptoms but also just helps
eye allergies kind of resolve overall now I'd say for most people those drops work probably
90 percent of the time and finally yes dry eye syndrome can be a potential cause for watering
tearing eyes and again I know it sounds kind of counterintuitive because you'd think no my
eyes are watering all the time how could they be dry well because we've talked about in a lot of
other videos the the surface of the eye and the tear film is very complex it depends on
a level of balance a homeostasis of different components all kind of working in the correct
way at the right time and so if your eyes are in fact dry your body can sense this and will
try to correct the problem Itself by the only way it really knows and that's to produce more liquid
through your tears however as we kind of discussed if your eyes are are tiering just on like one side
that usually isn't due to something like dry eyes or allergies then I'm thinking more like it's a
blocked single tear duct or again perhaps there's a drainage issue with just tears not being able
to flow toward the nasal duct otherwise there are many treatments for dry eyes many of which
we've covered here on this channel but some of the easier ones that people run to are just artificial
tears staying hydrated as well as getting good sleep there is research that shows even just
two nights of decreased rest can result in dry eye symptoms but hey if you found value in this
video please hit that like button for me and subscribe to the channel if you are new if you
have a question about anything at the eyes please let us know in the comment section because I do
read those and oftentimes those get turned into future videos if you do want to learn more about
dry eyes or other treatments that you can do at home to take care of your eyes and vision check
out our video playlist right over here other let's keep an eye on it and we'll see in the next one
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