Dry eyes: who gets them and causes
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Who gets dry eyes?
Dry eyes can affect anyone, but it becomes more common with increasing age. Dry eyes affects about 7 in 100 people in their 50s, and about 15 in 100 people in their 70s. Women are affected more often than men.
What are the causes of dry eyes?
Anything that reduces the normal amount of tears that you make may result in dry eyes. The causes include:
- Ageing. You tend to make less tears as you get older. In particular, some women notice dry eyes developing after the menopause.
- Medication. Some drugs sometimes have a side-effect of causing dry eyes, or make dry eyes worse. These include: diuretics ('water tablets'); some antidepressants; antihistamines; some treatments for anxiety and other psychological problems; the contraceptive pill; beta-blockers such as propranolol, atenolol, etc; some eye drops used to treat other eye conditions. This is not an exhaustive list. Tell you doctor if you suspect that a drug is causing your dry eyes.
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Illness. Some people develop dry eyes as a symptom of a more general disease. For example, dry eyes may occur with rheumatoid arthritis, SLE (systemic lupus erythematosus), and Sjogren's syndrome. In these situations you would normally have other symptoms in other parts of the body. For example, joint pains.
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Increased evaporation of tears. This may be due to:
- Low humidity. For example, from central heating or air conditioning.
- Low blink rate, often combined with opening your eyes wider than normal. For example, spending a long time looking at a computer, TV or microscope.
Windy conditions when you are outside. - Inability to completely cover the eyes when closing the eyelids. For example, due to eye problems that some people have related to thyroid disease. Also, some people sleep with their eyes partly open.
- Damage to the outer part of the eyes, eyelids, etc, from disease, injury or surgery.
- Blepharitis (inflammation of the eyelids) is often associated with dry eyes.
- Unknown. Some younger people have no apparent cause.They simply produce less than the normal amount of tears.
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