I’m going to be talking about one of those annoying conditions that people often report, and that is a watery eye.
In this blog post, I’m going to attempt to rank the courses of watery eyes from number five, the least common cause down to number one, the most common cause, so read down for that.
Number 5: Is a problem with the lacrimal gland (Is the least common cause of a watery eye)
Now, the lacrimal gland is the watery gland that releases the actual watery part of your tears. The reason that this is one of the least common causes of watery eyes is that the most common issue where the lacrimal gland causing it to water would be things like rare tumours that might impact this gland, causing it to be in a constant state of excitation and releasing tears. These tears, would constantly stream into your eye and run down your face.
Now, this is something that just doesn’t happen very often and that’s great news because this is not a condition that anybody would want to have.
Number 4: Completely blocked tear duct.
Now we have tear ducts that help our tears to drain out a bit like plumbing in the eyes, where your tears would flow down and flow into the nasal passage. If you’re experiencing complete blockage of the tear duct, then you are going to be experiencing constant streaming of your tears, whether you’re indoors or outdoors. The issue here is just that there’s no outlet for the tears to flow out.
Number 3: Partial blockage of your tear duct.
Now, this is by far a lot more of a common situation that we come across with people on a day to day basis and the reason for this is just that it’s quite a normal part of ageing for the drainage duct to kind of narrow as we get older.
The problem here is that if you are in a situation where your eyes would normally water more as a protective mechanism, such as when you’re out in the wind, then the extra tears that are produced just kind of flood the drainage system so you tear your drainage can’t keep up with this extra tear that is produced.
So you tend to find then that in these situations, like when you are out in the wind or fan blowing your face or in a cold environment, then your tears will flow down your face and you have problems with your eyes watering in that situation, however, you may then find them when your indoors or when there is not such a strong stimulant for your eyes to water that you don’t have as many problems with your eyes streaming and the tears kind of flowing down your face in that situation.
So all of these things can stimulate your eyes to water and more, and in such a way that it kind of becomes a constant burden and causes a tear to stream down your eyes.
In number 1: Dry eyes (Probably the most common cause of a watery eye)
Now, for many people, this sounds counter-intuitive, doesn’t make sense, but the way I often explain it to people is for them to think about the fact that with dry eyes, you may start to get dry patches forming on your eyes, much in the way that it would do if you had a staring competition with somebody and you keep your eyes open as wide as you can for as long as you can, after a while, you’ll notice that your eyes will start to stink and that’s the formation of the dry patches on your eyes and then you’ll start to find that your eyes water as well, and that watering is a reflex protective mechanism where your eyes try to flood the eyes with water to try and fill in the gaps of the dry patches that are forming your eyes and this then leads to your eyes over-watering and tears streaming down your face.
Now, the great news is that there are very many seems causes of watery eyes, and many of these conditions that we highlighted today can be dealt with and treated by your optometrist or your eye care professional.
So if you are experiencing watery eyes, then don’t be overly worried about it, but do go and get professional help, and they can identify which of these five problems may be going in your situation.
Now, let me know in the comment section below whether you are going through watery eyes right now or whether it’s something that you’ve had before and how you dealt with it?
So thank you so much for watching guys, and look forward to catching you all in the next post.
Take care.
