Patient's question:
My child is 7 months old. Since birth, there has always been tears in the left eye, and later there was also eye discharge. At four months, we went to the hospital for a check-up, and the doctor recommended massaging the eye corners, but there has been no improvement so far. We have been persistently applying Tobralex every night. What should we do? I heard that it will naturally get better as they grow older. Is that true?Doctor's answer:
We all have lacrimal glands that produce tears and lacrimal ducts to drain them (including lacrimal puncta, lacrimal canals, lacrimal sacs, and nasolacrimal ducts). Usually, some tears secreted by the lacrimal glands evaporate and solidify, while some tears flow through the lacrimal ducts into the nasal cavity. Some people are more sensitive to cold stimuli. When the eyes are exposed to cold air, the lacrimal glands secrete more tears. In fact, this phenomenon is a protective physiological response of the lacrimal glands to cold stimuli.