White mucus - what is this?

[wissen1]

Hey, I'm wondering who else has white mucus in the (inner or outer) corner of the eye all the time? It looks like wood glue. Somedays I can wipe it away every hour and my right eye is usually worse.
Anyone knows what this is? It doesn't seem to be directly related to how my eyes feel.

[PhoenixEyes]

I think it is as you say, mucous. The bottom layer of the tear film is made up of mucous created by goblet cells on the eye. They help tears to adhere evenly to the eye. With dry eye there can be an overproduction of mucous.

If it becomes a problem you can consider trying to get acetylcysteine drops, preferably preservative free. I can't seem to get preservative free here due to a manufacturing problem in my country but was offered iLube (preserved acetylcysteine) short term by a cornea specialist to break down the excess mucous. Not to be confused with the other similar sounding eye drop acetylcarnosine.

[wissen1]

Hm so you say "if this becomes a problem". So more mucus in itself is not a problem?
I mean it's not really bothering me, so according to what you're say it's just a cosmetical problem?
I'm wondering if it helps the dry eyes if I get rid of the excessive mucus by using these drops? Or is the mucus even helping the eyes, just like execessive mucus helps to transport bacteria out when you have a cold for example.
I also noticed I only get this at work. At home I barely have excess mucus to wipe off.

You got more knowledge to share about this?

[PhoenixEyes]

If it's at work then I wonder if moisture chamber glasses might help if it's due to environmental factors (more drying conditions or more allergic irritants in the air).

Rather than removing with a finger assuming you're doing that maybe use a saline eye wash and/or eyelid wipe. I have heard if people keep trying to manually remove the mucous initially caused by dry eye then a secondary situation called mucous fishing syndrome can occur whereby the eye just creates more mucous due to the repeated contact irritation. In the following study someone with mucous fishing syndrome initially got no relief from artificial tears or refraining from extracting the mucous, so they used a mucolytic (e.g. acetylcysteine) to make the mucous less thick and an antihistamine to protect against allergic irritants that might be propagating the mucous production. In the end they felt an improvement and under examination the surface of their eye also improved.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11712630

The mucous can really irritate my eyes at times, but what got me to use iLube short-term was when I got a very bad bout after trying bandage contact lenses where the mucous trapped my eyes shut, just wish it didn't have preservatives. Hopefully if they make the preservative free version available again here I could use it occasionally long-term to keep the dry eye mucous under control.