Many patients are coming in and calling about aching eyes. Commonly it is called “eye strain,” but it can be a symptom of something more concerning: Meibomian gland dysfunction.
It would be best to come to examine your eyes and meibomian glands (with a meibography).
Currently, the best ways to decrease the feeling of eye strain are:
1. Blinking frequently: blinking exercises are recommended often:Blinking Exercises Dr. Cremers Recommends
2. Typing with your eyes closed
3. Look away from the screen every 10-20 minutes for at least 10-20seconds
4. Use your ears to hear videos and not your eyes unless needed; call friends, don’t text them; or at least dictate as much as possible with SIRI and avoid looking at screens.
5. Change enable dark mode on iPhone: https://www.howtogeek.com/440078/how-to-enable-dark-mode-on-your-iphone-and-ipad/
The idea here is to decrease blue light into the eye/macula but studies are still pending to prove this is dangerous for eye macula and dry eye.
5. Read your material in print, not on screen (ie, get the physical newspaper, read real books: not online versions); print out large documents to read: it is better to kill trees than dry up your meibomian glands
6. Apply warm compresses (see below) with lid massaging/hard blinking to push the oil out of the meibomian glands to keep them functioning as when this oil dries up, “eye strain” symptoms worsen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R265A4IsNk&ab_channel=SandraLoraCremers%2CMD%2CFACS
7. Every time you wash your hands, wash your eyes with warm water
8. Use blue-light filtered glasses and decrease the blue light with F.LUX https://justgetflux.com/
SLC