Home Remedy for Dry Eye: Warm Compress

Los Angeles has been suffering from a very dry winter, worsened also by the fallout from the recent tragic fires. What if we told you that you could alleviate the irritation and scratchiness you feel from dry eyes – by yourself, at home? You can make yourself a nifty warm compress! 

1. First, get a clean and dry sock (any material is fine). Place approximately 1 cup of uncooked dry rice into the sock. Any rice is fine!
2. Tie a knot at the top of the sock, and place the sock with rice into the microwave for about 30 seconds. Every microwave is different, so test the heat of your sock with rice to make sure it is as warm as you can tolerate. If it is too hot, it will hurt your skin. If it is not warm enough, it will not be as effective.
3. Close your eyelids and place the heated sock with rice against your closed eyelids. Make sure that you don’t place too much pressure against your eyes – you mainly want the heat to be absorbed by your eyelids. Apply the warm compress for 10 minutes, or longer if the heat lasts longer.
4. Repeat as needed! You can repeat as many times daily as you need. You also may apply any time of day, at your convenience. Dr. Nuyen sometimes applies three to five times daily, depending on her dry eye symptoms. She starts to notice an improvement later that day or the next day. 

The reason this works so well is that the prolonged gentle heat softens the oils in the oil glands of the eyelids (called Meibomian glands). These oils secrete from the glands and coat the tear film on your ocular surface. This strengthens the integrity of the tear film and slows down evaporation of your natural tears. Thus your tears are able to protect your eyes more significantly and lessen your dry eye symptoms.

Sometimes warm water is used to apply heat to the eyelids (and many of our patients do tell us that splashing the warm water to their eyes while in the shower helps their eyes feel better too). However, water cools off rapidly, so we like using the rice and sock method so that the treatment is effective for a longer period.

Please share your thoughts with us about this handy treatment! If you suffer from dry eye, please come visit us in the office for a complete evaluation and discussion of a variety of treatments.