What do these symptoms represent?

[Morrissey35]

Dear all,

I have been suffering from my problem for two years now. It manifests mainly whenever I am doing a visually demanding task such as watching television or using the computer. Also, during times of stress to me, the situation can flare up. My eyes become red and irritated and blink rapidly. As I utilise my distance vision by looking at the TV my eyes also feel as though they are straining. This really is an annoying problem and I am not entirely convinced by my official diagnosis of dry eyes. I say this because I have tried three types of dry eye solution including viscotears and hypromellose which have not ameliorated the problem.
My question is to the community and is what do these symptoms represent? Is it clearly a symptom of some condition, and can I find medication to treat the underlying problem? Has anyone suffered similar problems?

[peter56]

Hi Morris,
the symptoms your are describing, could be indicators of a mild meibomian gland dysfunction.
Or more exactly a lipid - fetty layer deficiency of the tear film.
The lipid layer does prevent the rapid evaporation of the tear film.
In healthy eyes the lipid layer is about 100-120nm = 1/10000mm thin.
Working at a PC Screen does cause a decreased blink rate and so less meibum-lipid is being expressed from the MGs.

In the healthy eyes of females, the blink rate is 22 times in a min, in males 9 times in a min.
Your eyes may try to compensate the lipid deficiency - irritations by an increased blink frequence.
But then most of these blinks are incomplete ones. The lid margins don't contact each other and almost no meibum
is being pressed out. Incomplete blinks are the most severe Problem of the Computer Vision Syndrome.

The best diagnostic tool is the BUT. The BUT does represent all sub parameters of the tear film.

But one BUT measurement is not sufficient for a reliable diagnose.

It takes at least 3-4 BUTs with several days between the measurements!
I don't know where you are living.
But it will be difficult to get the BUTs from an ophthalm every week and that 4-5 times.
So maybe you may ask an optometrist - someone that does fit glasses and CLs and who has a lot of experiences
taking the BUTs.

The BUT at the slit lamp is most reliable.
Using an electronic device - NIBUT - non-invasive-BUT sometimes do deliver strange results.


It is important, that in the 30 min. before the BUT is taking place, no drops-gel are being applied!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23399377

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24067407