Making Tears Part 1

To learn how tears are made, it is helpful to understand the elements in a tear, as well as the hierarchy of signaling and basic arrangement of glands and tissues required. for that production Most will appreciate how the brain is the key regulator - King (or Queen) to their servants, including, in this analogy, the organs and glands that define our bodily actions.

Nerves serve as the telegraph lines (yes, telegraphs came much later in the scope of history, but it’s hard to imagine faster lines of communication in the medieval era), communicating these royal wishes to their servant subjects, In turn, these subjects send back their sensations - as reports and needs - by an alternate series of telegraph lines, so the Royals can serve and sense what’s going on around them. Apart from all this commotion, exists the most basic daily activities, including the making of tears. Furthering my medieval analogies, this would be the regulation of Peasants and more lowly Serfs, by Knights and their Lords.

I see each eye as a Lord, served by Knights (on horseback;) - acting as the muscles to move their Lords around in their carriages, (the orbit). Other Knights (with their own set of Serfs) exist to clean, nourish and protect them. Eyelid Knights are supported - outside - by skin and eyelashes (to shield from the elements) and are supported inside - by membranes, glands, and plumbing to make and distribute tears). Over all of this, a Round Table of Knights serve as a finely tuned defense system. These soldiers and their Serfs serve as the archers, water bucket carriers, catapult artillery, oil pot boilers,, swordsmen - you get the idea… Each have their own jobs to do in peace and war time - and their basic directives are governed by an automatic, (autonomic) system of rules and orders.

Blood vessel-bourne messengers exist as hormones (carrying larger decrees - often from far away glands like the thyroid, ovaries, testicles or adrenal glands) and smaller proteins (providing simpler directives that can be sourced more locally or further away). They coordinate with the telegraphed messages delivered by nerves, and break down into “rest’ (parasympathetic) or “work” (sympathetic) modes, with frequent overlap. Since our focus in this series is about the tears, it is important to discuss the basic elements of a tear and where they come from.

At its core, tears are made of water, salts, proteins and oils. Water is by far, the largest portion of a tear and it comes from several glandular sources and is under a complex neural control. Those telegraph lines are fairly buzzing much of the time and their messages are modified by hormones and proteins. Let’s dive into this next week!

To schedule an appointment with Dr. Jaccoma, call Excellent Vision at either of these two dry eye offices:

(1) 155 Griffin Rd, Portsmouth, NH 03801 (603) 574-2020

(2) 3 Woodland Rd, STE 112 Stoneham, MA 02180 (near Boston) (781) 321-6463