The term dry eyes refers to a lack of lubrication in one’s eyes. Someone suffering from dry eyes will experience one or more of the following symptoms. These symptoms include an uncomfortably dry feeling in the eyes, stinging or burning sensations. Additionally, this can occur as a rare experience or chronic condition. The symptoms of chronic dry eyes and acute dry eyes differ only in chance of recurrence. Many natural remedies will treat these symptoms, including:

1. Warm eye compresses

Warm eye compresses are an easy and effective treatment for dry eyes. One simply takes a warm, soft cloth and places it over the eyelids. The item used for warm compresses can range from a washcloth soaked in warm water to rice baggies or commercially made solutions.

The warm compresses work by helping to liquify meibum in one’s eye while also increasing production. Meibum is an essential part of tears and ocular lubrication in general. By increasing meibum production and distribution one will also increase overall lubrication in the eyes.

2. Omega-3 supplements

Dry eyes are often caused by nutritional issues in one’s diet. In these cases an omega-3 supplement might offer relief. The supplements will help through a number of different mechanisms of action. The first is that it can help general hydration. Drinking water with the supplement will give people some additional help there.

Omega-3 supplements also help tear break-up time and osmolarity. Basically, the supplements help people generate more ocular lubrication and improve the efficiency of this process. It’s important to note that this type of relief may take a while to reach peak effectiveness. Nutrition based treatments require some additional time for the components to break down within the body. From that point there’s an additional delay for those components to properly integrate into the body. As such, omega-3 supplements are often best used in conjunction with one of the other natural dry eye remedies.

3. Castor oil eye drops

Eye drops are one of the fastest ways to treat dry eyes. However, it’s important to keep in mind that eye drops come in a wide variety of forms. Each of these will usually have a unique mechanism of action. Natural tears eye drops, for example, offer relief in a different way to castor oil eye drops.

Castor oil eye drops are especially helpful for dry eyes associated with lipid-deficiency. However, one can expect the drops to help almost any type of dry eyes. It primarily works by improving tear stability, meibum expression, tear evaporation prevention and the general lubricating action of oils. People can use castor oil dye drops similarly to standard drops. It’s important to note that the drops can feel more viscous than expected. That viscosity is simply to be expected when using an oil based eye drop and isn’t anything to worry about. One simply uses a couple drops in each eye before gently massaging the eyelids. The massaging helps distribute the oil to every part of the eye in order to maximize the area of effect.