How to keep a dry eye diary your doctor can actually use

Dry eye symptoms rarely stay the same from one day to the next. Your eyes might feel fine in the morning, gritty by mid-afternoon and watery on a windy walk home. That variation is exactly what makes them hard to describe at an appointment, and exactly what a diary captures well.

Symptoms worth recording

• Gritty, sandy or burning feeling
• Redness
• Watery eyes (irritated eyes can produce extra tears)
• Blurring that clears when you blink
• Tired eyes or discomfort with contact lenses

Rate how bad it is on a simple scale, for example 0 to 5, and keep using the same scale. Consistency matters more than precision.

Context worth recording

• Screens. People tend to blink less while concentrating on a screen. Note roughly how many hours.
• Air. Air conditioning, heating, fans, wind or a long flight.
• Contact lenses. How many hours you wore them.
• Drops. Which drops, when, and whether they helped and for how long.
• Medicines. Some medicines can affect tear film. List what you take and when you started, and let your doctor judge.
• Sleep. Hours, and whether you woke with sore eyes.

A format that takes one minute

Twice a day, morning and evening, write the time, your score, and one line of context. For example: "19:30, 3/5, 7 hours on laptop, office air con, drops at 14:00 helped for an hour." After two weeks you will often see a pattern you hadn't noticed.

What to bring to your appointment

• A summary of the two to four weeks before the visit, not every entry
• The names of any drops and medicines you use
• Your contact lens type and wearing time, if you wear them
• Your questions, written at the top

In Ocufuse the Doctor Brief does this for a date range you choose. You can print it or send it. Clinicians can read what a brief contains.