52.1429 weeks in a year - and this is #52 of my Dry Eye Posts!

Another Happy New Year to you. In reviewing my posts since my start 12/29/21, I noticed this is officially #52 and since Google says there are 52.1429 weeks in an average year, I guess this closes out a full year of my posts. I took the opportunity over the weekend, to read each and every one of these posts and I noticed the common theme - Tears are important as they serve as the “clear blood” serving to support the living surface of our eyes. Blinking is the “heartbeat” that constantly renews and re-distributes that “clear blood” so the surface can stay healthy with those fresh tears.

I also noticed that while I repeat certain information in many of my posts, it comes down to the mainstay of how to help keep tears healthy - so they can support that living surface through the thick and thin of modern life. Such life now lasts longer than prior generations - yet we use our eyes more than any generation before us, thanks to the “digital world” we live in. That kind of stress is bound to show up in a diverse array of ways and can account for the many signs and symptoms relating to unhealthy tears. We dry eye specialists refer to unhealthy tears as “Dysfunctional Tear Syndrome” but call it “Dry Eye DIsease” to our patients, friends and non-dry-eye-specialist colleagues. We refer the outcome of those dysfunctional tears, as “Ocular Surface Disease,” and many of us have devoted much of our careers to better diagnosing and treating it.

Once we accept that tears equal “clear blood,” then it is easier to accept that when tears go bad, the surface of our eyes will “go bad.” Just as “bad blood” can’t support our bodies to stay healthy and will lead to “disease,” this means bad tears will lead to “Dry Eye DIsease” (or whatever we chose to call it).

For any of you in doubt about whether you may have dry eye disease, I refer you back to my first posting, December 29, 2021, https://www.eyethera.com/blog/rn9p8ouyjzjhyfpkvrysxjx28no0q8 where I posted my introduction to dry eye disease and a simple 20 second “test” you can do at home to help you. If any of you find the test pointing in the direction of Dry Eye (or Ocular Surface) DIsease, then if you haven’t done this in a while (as I had not), I will suggest you read through my posts from the start, to present day. I think (and hope you’ll agree) I’ve done a reasonable job at putting it all into some perspective - at what I aim to be the “average patient level.”

Launching my postings into 2023, I will do my best to continue this tradition and help bring newer thoughts, technologies, treatments and perspectives to what I can share. I realize that many of my readers are already my patients, friends, colleagues and family - and I hope to “spread the word” through each of you, to your patients, friends, family and colleagues. Let’s help “stamp out” dry eye and ocular surface disease together!