Conditions · Head, ears & eyes
Acupuncture for Dry Eye
Dry eye is when your eyes do not make enough tears, or the tears dry up too fast. Chinese medicine links the eyes to the Liver and to the body's fluids, and treats the pattern alongside your eye doctor's care.
Common symptoms
- Gritty, sandy or burning eyes
- Redness and tired eyes, often worse by the end of the day
- Blurred vision that clears when you blink
- Watery eyes, as the eye overreacts to dryness
- Discomfort with screens, wind, air conditioning or contact lenses
Common causes
- Age, and hormone changes such as menopause
- Long hours on screens, which cut down blinking
- Blocked oil glands in the eyelids (meibomian gland dysfunction)
- Dry indoor air, wind and smoke
- Some medicines, and conditions such as Sjögren's syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis and thyroid disease
How Chinese medicine understands dry eye
Chinese medicine says the Liver “opens into the eyes”, and that the eyes need Blood and Yin, the body’s cooling, moistening side, to stay comfortable. Dry eye is usually read as the eyes not getting enough of that nourishment, or as heat drying them out.
The common patterns are:
- Liver Blood deficiency. Dry, tired eyes with blurred vision, often with dry skin and hair, pale nails, and in women light periods. It tends to be worse at the end of the day.
- Liver and Kidney Yin deficiency. Dryness and burning with a feeling of heat, night sweats, poor sleep and a dry mouth. It is common around menopause and with age.
- Lung dryness. In this view, the Lung governs the body’s surface and fluids. Dry eyes come with a dry nose, throat or skin, and are worse in dry indoor air.
- Liver Qi stagnation with heat. Red, irritated eyes that flare with stress, long screen days or poor sleep.
Many people have a mix. The pattern decides whether treatment mainly nourishes and moistens or mainly cools and calms.
What treatment involves
Your first visit includes a lot of questions: when your eyes are worst, screen time, sleep, and your general health. I look at your tongue and take your pulse, then explain your pattern.
Acupuncture usually combines points around the eyes with points on the hands, legs and elsewhere, chosen for your pattern. Treatment aims to ease the gritty, burning feeling and support the eyes’ own moisture. Tight neck and shoulders, common after long screen days, are treated at the same visit.
When the pattern calls for it, Chinese herbal medicine adds a formula written for you, taken daily between visits and dispensed at the clinic in Keswick.
Plan on 5–10 treatments to judge progress. Treatment works alongside your optometrist’s or ophthalmologist’s care.
Between visits
- Follow the 20-20-20 rule. Every 20 minutes on a screen, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds, and blink fully.
- Use a warm compress on closed eyelids for a few minutes a day, if your eye doctor agrees. It can help the oil glands.
- Add moisture to the air with a humidifier in winter, and point car and desk fans away from your face.
- Wear wraparound sunglasses outside in wind.
- Keep using your prescribed drops. Do not stop them without advice.
When to see your doctor first
Have your eyes checked by an optometrist or ophthalmologist before starting, so other causes are ruled out. Get help urgently, the same day, for:
- Eye pain, especially if it is severe.
- Any loss of vision, or sudden blurred vision that does not clear with blinking.
- A red, painful eye with sensitivity to light.
- A painful eye while wearing contact lenses. Take the lenses out and get seen.
- An injury to the eye, or a chemical in it.
See your doctor soon if dry eyes come with a very dry mouth, joint pain or swelling, a rash, or unexplained tiredness. These can point to a condition such as Sjögren’s syndrome.
What the research says
In a systematic review of data from 394 patients, acupuncture improved symptom scores, tear production and tear break-up time compared with control treatments, with no severe side effects, though the authors note that its effectiveness for dry eye has been controversial.
Acupuncture for the management of dry eye disease. Frontiers of Medicine, 2022.
Across 21 randomized trials (1,542 eyes), acupuncture improved tear break-up time, tear production, corneal staining and symptom scores more than artificial tears alone, and adding acupuncture to artificial tears helped more than the drops alone; the authors describe its efficacy as still controversial.
Therapeutic effects of acupuncture in typical dry eye: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Acta Ophthalmologica, 2021.
Research findings describe groups of people in studies. How you respond depends on your own diagnosis.
Questions about dry eye
Are needles put near my eyes?
Points around the eyes are commonly used, placed on the bone around the eye socket, not in the eye itself. Points on the hands, legs and elsewhere are used as well. The needles are very fine, and you can say at any point if an area feels too sensitive.
Should I keep using my eye drops?
Yes. Keep using the drops and treatments your optometrist or ophthalmologist recommended. Acupuncture sits alongside them, not in place of them.
Why does Chinese medicine ask about my sleep and my periods for a dry eye problem?
In Chinese medicine, dry eyes are often part of a wider dryness pattern, linked to Blood and Yin. Poor sleep, night sweats, dry skin or changes around menopause help show which pattern it is, and that changes the treatment.