“Sleep in My Eye”

I recently saw someone who complained of crusting in her eye. “I always wake up with sleep in the corner of my eye!” Sleep in her eye? What’s going on here? What she meant was that she has crusting of dried mucoid secretions and lid scurf that accumulates in her eye. Typically people see the most accumulation of this during sleep because they don’t clear it/wipe it and aren’t blinking (blinking allows turnover of the tear film which helps move things off of the ocular surface). Often this is associated with increased mucoid secretions on the surface of the eye and increased lid scurf, which are both associated with inflammation of the eyelids and a dry ocular surface. So, what can she do about it? The same treatment we do for lid inflammation and dry ocular surface in general–warm compresses and artificial tears! Of course, there are situations when lid crusting can represent different diseases, so sometimes it is best to have symptomatic eyes actually examined.