My Eyes Frequently Water Severely: Can You Help?

If your eyes are frequently spilling over with water, there could be any number of causes, but perhaps the most common — and unexpected — one is dry eyes. Your eyes either don’t produce enough tears, or they don’t produce enough good-quality tears, which triggers your body to try to correct the problem. The result is too much water, and a host of other symptoms to boot.

At Retina Specialists, our team of board-certified ophthalmologists understands how annoying and irritating watery eyes can be, as well as how the condition can impact your eye health. That’s why they provide a number of treatment options to resolve the problem.

The nature of tears

Your eyes contain glands in and around the eyelids whose function is to secrete tears. When you blink, your lids spread the tears across the surface of the eye, lubricating, washing away debris and pathogens, and helping keep your vision clear.

If the glands produce too many tears, the excess flows into ducts in the inner corners of your eyelids and drains into the back of your nose.

Dry eye most often occurs because of an imbalance between tear production and duct drainage that may be caused by:

• Getting older
• Secretion gland problems
• Medical conditions (e.g., diabetes, thyroid problems, rheumatoid arthritis)
• Medication side effects
• Wind and dry air, which cause evaporation

Tears consist of three layers that nourish and protect the cornea, the curved, clear membrane covering the eye’s surface: oil, water, and mucus. If any layer becomes damaged, your tears may be too watery, not spread evenly, or evaporate too quickly. All three factors lead to dry eye.

And while you might think watery eyes wouldn’t be a symptom of dry eye, it's actually quite common. If your tears don’t contain the right balance of water, salt, and oils, your eyes become dry and irritated, which causes an overproduction of tears to rectify the situation. Unfortunately, the tears the eyes can produce come only from the watery layer, so what you get is spillage and a perpetuation of the problem.

Spillage can also occur if the tear ducts become clogged. Instead of draining from the ducts, excess tears pour over the eyelids.

Can I help?

Most cases of dry eye and eye watering clear up on their own, but there are some things you can do at home for symptom relief:

• Try OTC gels, ointments, and drops
• Avoid smoking and secondhand smoke
• Limit screen time (you blink less frequently)
• Wear wraparound sunglasses to avoid wind, sun, and dirt
• Use a warm, moist compress over your eyes
• Apply light pressure to stimulate tear production
• Switch from contacts to glasses to avoid eye surface irritation

If at-home remedies fail to resolve the situation, Retina Specialists offers a number of treatment options in-office to help.

For mild cases, we recommend prescription-strength lubricating eyedrops or eyelid scrapers, which reduce the burning and gritty feeling. 

For long-term relief, we target the tear ducts. We can implant removable silicone/gel plugs in the ducts to prevent drainage, keeping the tears in the eyes to lubricate them. We can also surgically close the tear ducts to achieve the same result or repair or create a new tear drainage system (dacryocystorhinostomy).

If you’re bothered by frequent and severe eye watering, and at-home remedies aren’t helping, it’s time to come into Retina Specialists for an evaluation and treatment. Call us at any of our five Texas offices, or book online with us today.