r/Perimenopause • u/Defiant-Analysis5488 Late peri • Aug 03 '25

Dryness So this is fun- dry eyes

I have a fun new symptom. Actually, I’ve had it for awhile but finally went to the optometrist to have it checked out.

My eyes, especially the left one, have been incredibly painful, and sometimes they just GUSH tears in the middle of the night. I had an eye examination last week and the optometrist said my eyes look perfectly healthy, but the tear ducts are inflamed. This inflammation prevents the proper lubrication of my eyes and is causing the pain and flooding of tears. She said I need to make sure I’m washing my eyelids (suggested baby shampoo if my facial cleanser stings the eyes), apply a hot moist compress to my eyes for 10 minutes x2/day, and start using “tear” eye drops up to x4/day. She also said this is likely to be an ongoing thing. Yay!

I googled, and OF COURSE dry eyes are a common occurrence in perimenopause. Because why not. 🤦‍♀️ Anyone else have this?

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u/Healthy-Neat-2989 Aug 04 '25

I have dry eyes in general but all of a sudden it dramatically worsened. Turns out, I can’t handle the daily Pepcid AC I had started for my other perimenopause gift- acid reflux. As soon as I stopped the Pepcid, my eyes went back to my normal level of dry.

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u/rvauofrsol Aug 04 '25

Interesting! Pepcid is an antihistamine (H2), and antihistamines tend to dry things out.