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Relative humidity vs absolute humidity

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  • Relative humidity vs absolute humidity

    Battling on through the joys of DES as one does, it occurred to me that I wasn't sure about the role of humidity. My understanding is that for those with either AD or MGD (or both as in my case), humidity is a big factor for eye comfort.

    My office registered 33% relative humidity when I measured last week which is pretty low and I need to look into why that is (though I'm not sure my hygrometer is accurate).

    But, I'm not sure whether we're talking about relative humidity (RH) or absolute humidity (AH) when it comes down to helping DES. Relative humidity (for the sake of simplicity) is how much water vapour is in the air compared to how much the air can hold (the temperature affects this), whereas absolute is simply how much water vapour there is.

    So, if the RH is 50% and the air temp is 25C, if the air temp goes down to 20C, the RH will go up - even though there may not be any more water vapour around. But the AH remains the same in both situations. Over the day, the office temperature went up, and as it did so, the RH went down. But did this have much real effect from a DES sufferer's point of view?

    So mostly look at RH hen understanding how favourable the environment is for a DES sufferer (and I guess wind, dust etc) - or is this totally misleading given the wide fluctuation RH has related to the temperature?

    I also appreciate that temperature has an impact on tear film evaporative rates.

  • #2
    A little too technical for me, but I do know, my eyes are much happier in nasty weather. My office is very dry, the doc keeps the fan running at all times...in the middle of summer I was already getting shocks. The office in winter is nasty too. I am thinking about getting myself a small humidifier for my desk...does anyone else do that?

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    • #3
      kno where your coming from i have as metre in my room and always keep the humidity between 60 and 70% may seem high but my eyes feel better for it but i do notice that it changed with the temprature so will either have my humiditifier on very high or just low to keep it stable.
      but when i go my partners place an hour away the humidity is always like 40% and my eyes feel terrible so i ahve carry a humidifier where ever i go such a pain.

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      • #4
        hi kate

        have been thinking about a humidifier for some time now, especially with the colder weather coming I am dreading the central heating being on. Can you recommend a good one, what sort do you have, I know absolutely nothing about them. thanks lizibet

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        • #5
          hi lizibet

          i have this one
          http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produc...EHUMIDIFER.htm

          its dear but ive bought a few cheap ones and the mist just falls to the floor which isnt good so this one really pumps it in the air and it quickly mositens the air as well and i can tell a huge difference.

          is worth the money

          hope this helps

          kate

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          • #6
            thanks kate, will look into that. lizibet

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