Traveling With Dry Eyes: Flights, Hotel Rooms and Routines

Eyes that behave at home go gritty somewhere over the ocean, and are still complaining on the second morning in the hotel. Patients tell me the same story every time. Most of it can be headed off before you board.

Why does flying dry your eyes out?

Cabin air comes from outside the aircraft, where at cruising altitude there is almost no water. It arrives compressed, warmed and essentially dry. Nearly all the moisture in the cabin comes from the people in it, and the air carries that off faster than they can replace it.

That leaves humidity between about five and twenty percent, against the thirty to fifty percent a room should hold. Your tear film is a thin layer of water held together by oil from the lid glands, and in that air it evaporates roughly twice as fast.

The American Optometric Association puts airplanes on its short list of environments drier than normal. Two hours of that air changes the surface of an eye that already runs dry, not just how it feels.

The night before, and the airport

Do the lid routine the night before rather than losing it in the packing rush. The NHS puts cleaning your eyelids every day at the top of its self help list, and a trip is when that minute disappears.

Then the part nobody counts. Check in, security and the gate are two or three hours of conditioned air, so most people reach the aircraft door already behind. Put the first drops in at the gate, and take the lenses out there too.

What to pack, and where it goes

• Preservative-free drops, in single-use vials. The Academy advises preservative-free tears above roughly six uses a day, since preserved drops can start to irritate, and a travel day reaches eight or ten. Our eye drop guide explains the labels.
• A night ointment or thick gel, if mornings are the bad part at home. The Academy suggests exactly that for anyone who wakes up scratchy. It blurs vision briefly, so it goes in at sleep time only.
• Glasses, the lens case and solution, in the cabin bag. A checked bag that goes astray takes the case with it.
• A soft sleep mask. It holds a little moisture over the lids and keeps them down.
• Wraparound sunglasses. The Optometric Association recommends them outdoors to cut drying wind and sun at the destination.
• One small clean cloth. Warm, not hot, water over closed lids makes the lid oil runnier, and hotel taps run hotter than the one you know.

Drops, glasses and mask live in the seat pocket, since the bin gets opened once.

Lenses out, glasses on

If you take one thing from this article, take this. The NHS advice is plain: take your lenses out and wear glasses to rest your eyes. A lens floats in the tear film, and cabin air pulls at that layer.

Take them out before boarding: removing lenses over an aircraft sink with dry hands is how a simple flight becomes a problem. And do not sleep in them, including lenses labeled for extended wear, unless your own eye doctor has asked you to keep one in. Sleeping in lenses raises the risk of a corneal infection several times over.

If you keep them in anyway, use a rewetting drop labeled for lenses and take them out when you land.

In the air

The vent above your head

The Optometric Association tells people to keep blown air out of their eyes, with car heaters as its example. The same goes for the gasper vent, if your seat has one. Where there is one it rotates as well as opens, so aim it at your chest.

Moving air is harder on the eye than still air of the same dryness, because it carries evaporated moisture away rather than letting it settle. If your eyes have already gone sore, shut the vent and sit with them closed.

The screen on the seat back

We blink about fifteen times a minute normally and only five to seven at a screen, and in cabin air the missing blinks cost more. A seat back screen is bolted where it is, so recline a notch or watch on the tray table, where looking down narrows the lid opening.

Sleeping on the plane

Upright sleep is the worst kind of sleep for eyes. The head tips back and the lids sit further apart than on a pillow, so a gap that is common in dry eye stays open for hours in dry air.

Three things before you settle: the lenses out if they are still in, the ointment rather than a thin drop that is gone inside an hour, and the mask pulled down over the lids rather than left on your forehead.

The Academy lists antihistamines and sleeping pills among the medicines that can cause dry eye, which is awkward on a night flight. If you take one anyway, put the ointment in at the same time. Never stop a prescribed medicine on your own, though: ask the doctor who prescribed it.

How do you stop a hotel room drying your eyes overnight?

Air conditioning condenses water out as it cools; a heater removes none and simply makes the same water count for less. Eight hours of either one over a sleeping face makes a drier night than home. The Academy suggests staying out of very warm rooms, and putting moisture back in winter with a humidifier or a shallow dish of water by the radiator.

In practice: aim the vent away from the bed and turn the cooling down rather than off. Run the shower hot for five minutes with the door open before you turn in, which buys an hour or two, not a night. And the cloth you packed earns its place here: warm water over closed lids before sleep softens the lid oil after a day of dry air.

Our article on air conditioning and dry eyes has the rest.

Time zones and the flight home

What dries the eye around a time zone change is the sleep, not the clock. Short, broken nights reduce tear production, so protect the nights.

What a time zone does break is a routine that was pinned to one. If the lid routine happens at eleven at night, put it at eleven local from the first night and re-time the reminders on the plane.

The return leg is usually the worse one: it lands on a surface that has had a week of air conditioning, extra screen time and lid care that stopped. Restart the lid routine on the way home rather than after it. DryEyeGuide has Log Routine for the habits that run across days, and reminders in your own wording with an end date.

When to get help while you are away

Travelers push through what they never would at home. Two are worth interrupting a trip for: the NHS puts a painful red eye under urgent advice, and a red eye in a lens wearer too, since it could be an eye infection. Either means being seen that day.

Sudden vision changes, pain on looking at light or a very dark red eye need immediate care wherever you are. Dryness still there a few weeks later is worth an optician or GP appointment.

Flying does not give anyone dry eye; it leans on a surface that was already working hard, then hands it a hotel room. Lenses out, the vent at your chest, drops in the seat pocket and a warm cloth at the other end take a good part of the load off. Pack the glasses first.