Dry Eye and Make Up Use

[DocwithDryEye]

Lots of new information is being gathered about the harmful chemicals and preservatives in facial make up.

The following is a list of harsh chemicals that some of the top dry eye specialists are suspicious as potential irritants that can lead to the progression of dry eye, especially meibomian gland dysfunction:

Sodium Laureth Sulfates
Phenoxyethanol
Triretinoin (Retin A)
BAK
Formaldehyde
DMDM-Hydrantoin
Quaternium-15
Imidazolinyl Urea
Diazolidinyl Urea

Not an exhaustive list, but chemicals to avoid. No studies to link to this as I know of, but you can researach each chemical and see potential negative side effects.

[PG]

This includes everyday eye creams, many of which contain Retinoic Acid, Retinol, or whatever other names it goes by. Basically it is some form of Tretinioin.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3694789/

Makes sense, as it seems that the majority of dry eye patients are women 40+ years of age. What is that age group being affected by or doing that no one else is. That is the question.

[farmgirl]

The question was........."Makes sense, as it seems that the majority of dry eye patients are women 40+ years of age. What is that age group being affected by or doing that no one else is? That is the question."

To me that is not a difficult question to answer as it is a well known fact that a lot of dry eye in post menopausal women has to do with lack of hormones.

[PG]

Right, but what hormone? And why? What do the hormones do to the eye? They seem to be honing in on testosterone, probably because it is the differentiator from men. We wind up up with practically none. http://bjo.bmj.com/content/early/201...16-309498.long

But what I don't get is why they don't just supplement oral DHEA? I know there are a couple of trials showing it doesn't work for
Sjogrens but that is not apples to apples. It is certainly tempting to just do this since you can get saliva hormone panels and DHEA supplements online.