The Tear System

Hello

and welcome to my blog, today I want us to look at tear production system, its importance to us and what happens when things go south.

Image by Vishnu of Pixabay

Introduction

Whiles the tear production is the least concerned thing for patients when they visit the eye clinic it is still one of the most important systems of the eye that does a lot for us without even realizing. When things do not work out as they ought to be the effects are quite disturbing sometimes enough to affect vision.

Tear production is basically done by the lacrimal gland located in the orbit in between the eye lash and eye brow at the location of the eye lid. Tears are always been produced and so we always have tears on our eyes, this is called basal tears and it is present at all times. Reflex tears comes in when more production than normal is triggered by an occurrence whether it be emotional or physical.

Aside the lacrimal gland which does the most of tear production, there are other glands in the eyelid which also contribute to tear production. The Glands of Zeis, Moll, Wolfring, Krause and Meibomian gland all located within the eye lids produce one of the 3 main components of tears thus aqueous, lipid and mucous. Any inadequacy of any of these components would affect the tear film integrity and lead to other complications.

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Functions of Tears

After tears are produced from whichever gland they may be coming from, they end up on the eyeball keeping the surface of the eye moist. It also serve as a lubricant allowing one to easily roll the eyelid on the eye.

Tears also contains chemicals such as lysozymes, IgA, and B lysin that annihilates microbes that find their way on to the eye. It also help nourish the cornea (the transparent part of the eye that is seen as black when looking at someone’s eyes) by trapping oxygen for it.

Tear Drainage

If tears are constantly been produced to keep our eyes moist and provide all the other functions then definitely it has to have a drainage and this is done with the help of the punctum locate nasally at the edge of the eyelids. Tears a sucked up into the nose which then evaporates away of goes down the throat when there is excess production.

This accounts for the reason why kids get runny nose from crying a lot. And it is also one of the reasons why breathing out is humid. So your eyes are directly connected to your nose and then to your throat and nose hence the easily spread of infection from any of these areas to the other.

Complications of the Tear System

So what happens when things go wrong with this system? One of the most prominent issues is Dry Eye Syndrome which is mostly seen when there is an issue with any of the tear components. It comes along with redness, pain and burning sensation on the eye and is due to the basal tears not been adequate or it evaporating rather quickly. On rare occasions it may present with excessive tearing when the system tries to compensate for the anomaly.

One may also suffer from lacrimal apparatus dysfunction and end up with excessive tearing at all times or insufficient tear production. This may be as a result of inflammation or infection. Some other complications include dacryostenosis, dacryoscystitis and dacryoadenitis just to mention a few.

Treatments and Conclusion

Each pathology definitely has its own way of been tackled and whiles there are many cases to be looked at I could not exhaust everything in a single post hence the links for further reading provided at the bottom of this post. However; remember to seek immediate attention from your Optometrist or Ophthalmologist should you notice any anomaly with your eye.