Less sleep, drier eyes?

[Trac]

Over the weekend my eyes felt pretty good. I was able to go outside and do yard work and I did not use as many drops as normal. For some reason Monday I woke up at 3 am, after 4 hours of sleep and could not really get any good sleep after that. Monday I had to do a lab with chemicals for my biology classes. I wore my eye moisture goggles (I wear them all the time) and gloves while putting the chemicals in the cups. My eyes were bothering me quite a bit more than usual by Monday evening.

Again Monday to Tuesday I only got 4 hours of sleep. I still have the chemicals out in my room for students that have to make up the lab, but I moved all of the chemicals away from my desk and across the room. At this point I can now smell and taste the chemicals even though I have not had any direct contact with them. Tuesday after school I had computer training for 1 ½ hours, half way through this training my filaments are so bad I can hardly see. I put in Restasis, the only drop I had with me. By time I got back to my classroom I had a bunch of e-mails from my students that could not download their homework. So I was on the computer for 1 ½ hours dealing with that. I used all of my meds on Tuesday. I used serum 9 times over the course of the day and my eyes felt the worse they had in a long time. I put in ointment and went to be with hot compresses.
Once again only 4 hours of sleep before I woke up, but I did not get up for another 2 hours .Generally my eyes feel best in the morning. This morning my eyes are really dry and hurt already. I have back to school night tonight. So I will be in my classroom until after 9 pm, then I have a 25 mile drive home.

I don’t know why I keep waking up at 3 am. The only thing I can figure is I use to get up at 4 am and go to the gym before I went to work in the morning. I have not started doing that this year because I think the extra sleep is important. Also every night this week I have fallen asleep with the rice bag on my eyes and when I wake up at 3 am the bag is still there. Does anyone else have drier eyes when they get less sleep? I am sure the chemicals in my classroom are contributing to my eyes being drier, but this is much worse than normal. Last time my eyes were this dry my cornea tore. So I am keeping lots of drops in them, but for the first time none of the drops seem to do any good at all.

I would be interested in anyone’s input, it has always been very helpful.

[Schatten]

This is abolutely normal, even the average person has trouble with her eyes when they haven't slept enough. I don't know the exact reason for this, but I'll try to explain it.
During the sleep the lacrimal glands produce generally less tears (reasonable for me, because with eyes shut tears don't evaporate as much). If you get up now tear production needs to be increased. Since this is controlled by the vegetative nerve system, the production of tears can be influenced by stress. And getting not enough sleep is simply stress for the body thus influencing the vegetative nerve system (hormones etc. bla bla bla)

I wake up myself often and my eyes feel like I've partied all night.

[fiddle]

I have the exact same issue too. If I don't get a decent night's sleep then my eyes feel horrible the next day and my sight is much worse as well. The trouble for me is making sure that I do wake up in order to reapply my night gel so that the eyes stay lubricated all night. I had a great night's sleep the other day but when I woke up my eyes hurt from the lack of gel all night. Can't win for trying I suppose.
fiddle

[Colin P]

I do also! at the weekend if i can wake-up naturally then they feel better upon opening, rather than getting woken via an alarm clock..

[Leelah]

My eyes are horribly red and dry regardless of how much sleep I get. They feel worse if I get less sleep, but I don't think they look any different...

[bvendig]

i have the same issue. if i told sleep well then my eyes are dryer than usual.
hugs, betty

[bakunin]

When the symptoms of DES started (some burning and photophobia), i thought i was just no sleeping well since i had never heard about DES.

Yes, i think if we don't sleep well the symptoms get worse.