Have you noticed a gritty, burning, or irritated sensation in your eyes? Maybe you notice yourself blinking extra, rubbing your eyes more frequently, or using your eye drops more often. You might be thinking it’s just allergies and it will go away, but you might be experiencing dry eyes.
Dry eyes can be a source of frustration and impact your day-to-day life, so we want to help you find quick and long-term relief. If you’re a dry eye patient looking for short-term and long-term help, read below.
What Are Dry Eyes?
What are dry eyes, and what makes them so different from allergies? First, it’s important to consider whether or not you are experiencing any symptoms besides dry eyes. You also want to decide if this is a persistent occurrence or if it’s only bad during allergy season.
Dry eyes are a common condition and happen if your tear ducts aren’t working correctly. Your eyes always have tears, even when you’re happy. This is because tears help lubricate your eyes and moisturize them.
There are special glands around your eyes that help make tears. Tears, a combination of water, oil, mucus, and even antibodies, are important for your eye health. So when you experience dry eyes, it means those glands may be out of balance and can’t perform as they should.
What Are Possible Causes of Dry Eyes?
Dry eyes are annoying, but it’s even more annoying not to know what is causing them. Want to know a few ideas that can cause your eyes to dry up? There can be a variety of different factors that contribute to this, such as:
- Being around an air conditioner or heater
- Side effects of certain drugs like antihistamines
- Hormone changes
- Menopause
- Certain autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis
What Are the Symptoms of Dry Eyes?
As you might expect, the most common symptom of dry eyes is having dry, irritated eyes. Here’s what they can feel like:
- A stinging, burning, or scratchy sensation in your eyes
- Extra sensitivity to light
- Redness in your eyes
- A gritty feeling in your eyes, or a sensation of having something in your eyes
- Difficulty wearing contact lenses
- Difficulty with nighttime driving
- Watery eyes, which is your body's response to the irritation of dry eyes
- Blurred vision or eye fatigue
One of the main distinctions between dry eyes and allergies is itchiness. When you have dry eyes, your eyes may feel irritated and gritty.
What Are Short-Term Relief Options for Dry Eyes?
You might need some quick relief to help your dry eyes (especially if you need to look at a computer screen). That’s why we have a quick list of ideas to help you find some relief.
Warm Compresses
A warm compress can provide short-term relief for your dry eyes, depending on how irritated they are. Dampen your compress with warm water and place it on your eyes for a few minutes. This can help support proper blood circulation and oil gland function.
Rest Your Eyes
If you have some time to spare, resting your eyes can be a helpful way to try and get some moisture back. Take a breather and close your eyes. You will experience some relief while they are closed, but this could also be a good habit to try and incorporate into your daily routine in the morning and at night.
Reduce Screen Time
Unfortunately, a quick way to exacerbate your dry eyes is by looking at screens for a long time. Looking at screens often and for too long can cause eye strain and increase your risk for dry eyes.
Use Eye Protection
Your health care provider might prescribe eye drops to help get your eyes lubricated and moisturized. But protection can take many different forms, such as sunglasses. Although it may seem obvious, it’s important to remember that the sun can harm the eyes, so having a stylish pair of sunglasses can make you look great and potentially make your eyes feel better.
What Are Long-Term Relief Options for Dry Eyes?
Now that you know some short-term relief for your dry eyes, you are probably wondering how to alleviate and prevent dry eyes so that you don’t have to keep dealing with them. At iwi life, we want to provide you with the tools so you can take back better living.
Whether it’s to support your heart, eye, brain, or joint health – we’ve got you covered. We want you to find better living quickly and easily.
Read on to see how omega-3s can play a big role in helping you with your dry eyes.
What Are Omega-3s?
One way you can find some relief for your dry eyes is to increase the amount of omega-3s in your diet. But what exactly are they?
Omega-3s are a type of fat with a range of health benefits, and since your body can’t make them on its own, you have to get them from the food you eat — or supplements. Omega-3s can help your body feel and perform better by supporting your cell membranes.
There are three main types of omega-3s: ALA (alpha-linolenic acid), EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid), and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid).
When it comes to supporting your eye health, you want to focus on DHA since much of it is found in your retinas.
How Can Omega-3 Dietary Supplements Help Dry Eyes?
Studies suggest that omega-3s may play a role in helping your dry eyes by alleviating some of the symptoms. A 2016 study also found significant improvements for those with dry eyes within six months.
Supporting the Health of Your Cell Membranes
Omega-3s are critical to your body's function because they help maintain the health of your cell membranes.
Cell membranes are in every part of your body, including your eyes. By increasing your omega-3s, you could support the health of your cell membranes everywhere and potentially help aid the health of your eyes.
Maintaining Your Eyes’ Tear Film
Research suggests that increasing the amount of omega-3s in your diet is a credible therapy for people with dry eyes. Research also suggests incorporating omega-3 fatty acid supplements into your diet can help maintain proper production of your eyes' oil film or meibomian glands, which lubricate the surface of the eye.
DHA in Retina Support
Research shows that omega-3s, specifically DHA, are found in high concentrations in your eyes. The study reveals that it plays a protective role in your retinas, membranes, eye integrity, and vision.
Adding Omega-3s to Your Routine
DHA is typically found in most fatty fish, but many people don’t eat enough fish to satisfy their daily requirements. Not everyone likes the taste of fish, while others are following a special diet, like vegan, or are allergic.
That’s why we have a simple and effective way to get around these challenges: supplements to potentially help improve your wellness. And better yet, we make ours with algae oil, so you don’t get the fishy aftertaste from fish oil but still get all the benefits.
iwi life’s Eye Supplements
Supplements can be a great way to get the benefits you need without compromising your preferences. It is also much less of a commitment to take a supplement daily rather than buy all the ingredients at the grocery store and then prepare it each night.
That’s why we have our supplement specifically made for your eye health. Our algae oil supplements –– which are clinically proven to absorb 1.7X better than fish oil supplements –– contain 285 milligrams of total omega-3 fatty acids per serving.
At iwi life, we recognize the importance of omega-3s. We know how critical they are to your body, so we wanted to make supplements that can help you accomplish your health goals and help you create the healthy life you want and deserve.
Vision Support With iwi life
Whether it’s supporting your overall wellness with our omega-3 supplements, protecting your eye health, or wanting to increase your DHA levels – we have everything you could need to accomplish your wellness goals.
Even if you don’t suffer from dry eyes, making sure you have enough DHA levels in your diet is important to keep protecting your eyes and supporting your wellness. We want to help ensure your health and the quality of your life, so let us help you maintain your health with our algae omega-3 supplements.
Better vision, a better future, and better living start here with iwi life. Are you ready to return to your old life — the one before your dry eyes? Let’s start together.
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