Taking Apart The Tear Film To Understand Irritable Eyes

Most of you would have suffered from dry eyes off and on in your life depending upon specific situations. The most common problem that people suffer with respect to eyes is dry eyes in the office.

The cause for higher instances of dry eyes in offices is the heightened concentration levels of the people involved and the harsh, dry surroundings created by heating or cooling devices. Higher concentration is a cause because if you concentrate for an extended period of time then your blink rate goes down from the average of 22 times in a minute to 7 to 10 times in a minute. Blinking is the only way that your eyes refurnish their lubrication levels.

The lubrication of your eyes is the job of something known as the pre-corneal film which can also be called the tear film. This is the film between your eyes and your eyelids. The purpose of the tear film is not only limited to keeping your eyes well lubricated but also involves protecting it from outside infection. In fact, every single component of the tear film has multiple roles to play. The following are details:

1.The inner layer:
The innermost layer of your eyes is known as the mucous layer and it is always in direct contact with the cornea. The purpose of this component is to keep the middle layer in place while, at the same time, helping its even distribution on the surface of the eye. As the purpose of this component is to attract the aqueous layer, it is hydrophilic which means that it can attract water.

2.The middle layer:
Often, many people, when referring to the tear film, actually are referring to this film only. Despite the popular misconceptions, this layer is just a component, albeit a major component of the complete tear film. Even so, this component is important because it promotes and stabilises two of the most important functions in the eye i.e. prevention of infection and facilitation of osmotic regulation. This component consists of water, tear lipocalin, lacritin, lactoferrin and many others. It is produced by the lacrimal gland.

3.The outer layer:
This layer is also known as the lipid layer. As is obvious, this layer primarily consists of lipids or oils which are produced by the tarsal glands. The purpose of this layer is to repel the aqueous component which will keep it from spilling out of the eye. Owing to its property of repelling the middle layer, it can be called a hydrophobic layer.

As is evident, every single component of the tear film performs extremely vital functions for the eye. Hence, when the tear film is not present in sufficient amounts, the eyes can get irritable. In fact, a weak tear film often results in people being told by their ophthalmologists to avoid wearing contact lenses.

However, nowadays there are special eye drops created for people who have serious problems with dryness in the eyes in addition to the already available over the counter eye drops within the market. If you suffer from the same problem then you should make use of the many eye drops available in the market.