If the eyes are extremely dry, pathogens are easy. You can prevent dry eyes with the following measures - a rule helps in the office.
- It is usually due to too much screen work and dry heating air if the eyes cause problems.
- Most common condition: Dry eyes, which are often accompanied by foreign body sensation.
- Germs and viruses can also penetrate a dry eye more easily - a healthy tear film usually rinses out these pathogens quickly.
Around eight million people in Germany suffer from dry eyes, according to a message from the Barmer health insurance. Most common cause: PC work. If you look at the monitor during the long day, you will blink much less often instead of normally 20 times a minute: With intensive computer use, sometimes only five blinkes per minute can be measured. As a result, the tear fluid evaporates and the eyes dry out faster - especially in winter when the heating air is dry. "In the worst case, the lack of a protective film of the tears can cause inflammation of the eye because bacteria are not rinsed out," said Dr. Ursula Marschall, chief medical officer at Barmer. To prevent this, you can build a very simple routine into everyday life.
Against dry eyes: This is how the tear film is stabilized
Dry eyes often bring a foreign body sensation with them, as if there was a grain of sand in the eye. Wearing contact lenses * is also impossible for many people with dry eyes, as soft lenses in particular promote the drying out of the eyeball. But there are a number of eye care options that can be easily integrated into everyday life and prevent dry eyes :
- Take regular breaks: "Anyone who notices that their eyes dry up when working on the screen should take regular breaks, deliberately look into the distance and blink so that the eyes relax," says Marschall.
- Ventilate properly several times a day.
- A room humidifier also helps to keep the eyes moist.
- Use eye drops: there is a large selection of eye drops in drugstores and pharmacies that are recommended by many ophthalmologists for morning and evening eye care. You should make sure that the drops do not contain any preservatives.
It is mostly harmless and natural causes such as hormonal changes in old age that favor dry eyes. Many women in the menopause suffer from dry eyes because the production of tears decreases due to the hormone change . If in doubt, you should see a doctor to clarify the cause of dry eyes. So regularly taken sleeping pills, beta-blockers or the contraceptive pill can cause the eyes to dry out. According to the Barmer, the same applies to certain diseases such as diabetes mellitus, rheumatism or vitamin A deficiency.
Read more : Dangerous blue light - new study shows: LED light causes eyes to age faster.
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* merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen-Digital editors network .