Dry eyes at work: why screens make it worse and what actually helps
Most people with dry eyes have been told two things: use drops, and take breaks from your screen. Both are reasonable. Neither explains why your eyes feel fine at 9am and gritty by 4pm, why the drops help for twenty minutes and then stop, or why winter in an air-conditioned office makes everything worse.
Dry eye is one of the most common reasons people finally book an eye test, and one of the least understood. It is also, in most cases, assessable and manageable. Here is what is actually going on, and what a proper assessment looks like.
Why screens dry your eyes out
You blink about fifteen times a minute in normal life. Reading a screen, that rate roughly halves, and more of those blinks are incomplete: the lids never quite meet. Every blink that does not complete leaves part of the eye's tear film unrefreshed.
The tear film is not just water. It is a layered structure: a watery middle, a mucous base that helps it cling to the eye, and a thin oily surface layer that stops the water evaporating. That oil comes from the meibomian glands along the edge of your eyelids, and it is released by the pressure of a full, complete blink. Fewer blinks, and shallower ones, mean less oil, and less oil means the tear film evaporates faster than it is replaced.
Add air conditioning, which lowers humidity and increases airflow, and a CBD office becomes close to a purpose-built dry eye environment. The 4pm grittiness is not in your head. It is evaporation getting ahead of production, hour by hour.
Dry eye is a condition, not an inconvenience
Occasional dryness after a long day is common. But persistent dry eye is a recognised clinical condition, and it has different types with different treatments. Broadly: some eyes do not produce enough tears, and some produce tears that evaporate too quickly, most often because the meibomian glands are blocked or underperforming. The two problems feel similar and are managed differently, which is why guessing at the chemist shelf so often disappoints.
Left unmanaged, persistent dry eye does more than irritate. It can blur vision intermittently, make contact lenses hard to wear, and keep the eye's surface mildly inflamed. The pattern matters, the gland function matters, and neither can be assessed by symptoms alone.
What an assessment at Six Six involves
Dry eye assessment at Six Six happens within a comprehensive eye examination: an unhurried appointment of about 30 minutes with Dr Natalie Boffa, an AHPRA-registered optometrist with therapeutic endorsement and more than ten years in clinical practice.
The assessment looks at the tear film itself, how quickly it breaks up between blinks, the condition of the eyelid margins and meibomian glands, and the surface of the eye under magnification. It also covers the things that shape the condition from outside: your screen hours, your workspace, contact lens wear, medications, and general health, since all of these influence tears.
Because Dr Boffa is therapeutically endorsed, she is qualified to prescribe topical eye medications where clinically appropriate. That matters here: it means dry eye that needs prescription treatment can usually be managed in the practice rather than referred onward by default. Where the examination finds something that genuinely needs an ophthalmologist or GP, the referral is organised for you, with results attached.
What management can look like
There is no single fix, and no drop that suits every eye. What an assessment gives you is the right starting point for your particular pattern. Depending on what it finds, management may include:
- Targeted lubricants. Not all drops are the same; oil-deficient eyes and water-deficient eyes need different formulations, and preservative-free options matter for frequent use.
- Eyelid care. Warm compresses and lid hygiene to restore meibomian gland function, done in a way and at a frequency that fits the finding rather than a generic routine.
- Environment and habit changes. Screen positioning, humidity, airflow, and deliberate complete blinks. Small changes, chosen because of what the assessment showed.
- Prescription treatment where clinically appropriate, prescribed and reviewed in the practice.
- A review interval that fits the severity, so treatment is adjusted on evidence rather than left to drift.
If your eyes are fine and the dryness is situational, you will hear that plainly too.
When to book
Book an assessment rather than another bottle of drops if dryness, grittiness or burning is a most-days experience, if your vision blurs and clears with blinking, if contact lenses have become uncomfortable by afternoon, or if drops help only briefly. Persistent redness or soreness in one eye warrants a same-week appointment rather than a someday one: call the practice on +61 3 7056 8458 and describe what is happening.
Six Six is at 112 Little Collins Street, at the Paris end of Melbourne's CBD, a few minutes' walk from Parliament and Collins Street trams. Appointments can be booked online or by phone, and dry eye is assessed as part of a comprehensive eye examination. Six Six is a private billing practice; for eligible patients the Medicare rebate is processed on the spot.
