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What is Dry Eye Disease?

Dry eye, or Ocular Surface Disease affects at least 25% of the overall population. When left untreated it can have significant impact on quality of life and daily activities, including reading, watching tv, driving and working on a computer.

Simply put, dry eye is an instability in the tear film that coats the front of the eye. For most people dry eye involves a combination of multiple factors including inflammation, eyelid disease, aqueous tear deficiency, and environmental factors such as diet and medications.

One of the most common contributing factors to dry eye disease is blepharitis. Blepharitis is inflammation of your eyelids. It can affect the surface of the eyelids (anterior blepharitis) or the healthy oil producing meibomian glands within your eyelids (posterior blepharitis). This inflammation can affect the quality of tears produced from your lids, leading to dry eye.

Dry eye and blepharitis can cause many symptoms, including:

  • burning
  • grittiness
  • fluctuating vision
  • red eyes
  • excessive tearing
  • foreign body sensation
  • short stabs of pain
  • light or wind sensitivity

Learn more about the next steps on our Diagnostics page.