Posted on 09/13/2005 6:24:22 PM PDT by neverdem
For many people over 50, dry eyes are just another sign of aging, no more a nuisance than gray hair or crow's feet. The occasional stinging, redness or gritty feeling in the eye, especially on waking, goes away with a few good blinks.
But for millions, dry eyes are a painful, daily problem. Dr. Debra A. Schaumberg, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard, who has studied the prevalence of dry eye syndrome among subjects in the Women's Health Study and the Physicians' Health Study, estimates that as many as nine million Americans, most of them women, have moderate to severe dry eye.
The discomfort ranges from a mild burning, like having soap in your eye, to a persistent sense of scraping under the lids. Extreme dryness can lead to infection. And it can impair the way the eye refracts light, blurring vision and making it hard to read, work at a computer or drive.
"It's like having sand in your eye all the time," said Charlotte Chapman Cope, a health care administrator at the Methodist Hospital in Houston, whose left eye is very dry because of a damaged cornea. "And then each time your eye closes it's like a windshield wiper going over that sand and grinding it in."
Doctors have no cure, only temporary treatments - mainly with artificial teardrops. But in recent years they have learned more about how dry eye occurs, in particular the major role played by inflammation.
In most cases, the disorder has multiple causes - as diverse as menopausal changes and daylong work at computer screens. Knowing which ones are at work, doctors say, is the key to finding the best treatment.
The wet film on the eye's surface is not simple salt water, but a three-layered, gel-like concoction of mucous, water, fat and a variety...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Avian Influenza (H5N1) Viruses Exhibit Increased Virulence in Mammals (Title edited)
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
Thanks for the ping.
Some physicians recommend that patients consume more foods with beneficial omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids - cold-water fish and flaxseed oil, for example - or taking supplements to try to improve the quality of oily tears.
Although this nutritional strategy has not been shown to work for all patients, many report that it makes a difference.
I started an omega-3 and omega-6 supplement 2 months ago. Hopefully I will notice an improvement.
I have to blink a lot due to dry eyes.
I discovered by accident that flaxseed oil seemed to help.
Watching Janine(sp?) Turner do Restasis commercials helps a lot!
Izzat the same gal that did "Northern Exposure"?
Heck, she was pretty hot then, got a few more miles on her but she still looks pretty good!
She looked really, really good when she played on General Hospital. She had long blonde hair then
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