Dry eye relief in Cleveland, Ohio

Dry eye relief in Cleveland means planning for wind off Lake Erie and months of indoor heat. NOAA’s normals give the airport about 64 inches of snow and 111 freezing nights a year. Shield your eyes on the lakefront, keep heater and car vents off your face, blink fully during screen time, and use a lubricating drop as its label directs. Pain or vision changes need an eye doctor.

Cleveland weather in NOAA’s numbers

NOAA’s official station for the city is at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, about 763 feet above sea level on the southwest side. Its 1991 to 2020 normals:

• About 63.8 inches of snow in a normal year, with January the snowiest month at 18.4 inches.
• Snowfall of an inch or more on about 20 days a year.
• About 41.03 inches of total precipitation, spread so evenly that no month averages under 2.49 inches.
• 110.8 nights a year at or below 32°F, and about 37 days with a high that stays at or below freezing.
• July highs averaging 83.7°F, with about 12 days a year at 90°F or hotter.

Snow totals vary a lot across Greater Cleveland, so read the airport figure as one point on the map rather than the number for every suburb.

Lake Erie wind

Living next to a Great Lake means wind. On the lakefront, at Edgewater or along the shore by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, air coming across miles of open water has nothing to slow it down. Moving air pulls moisture from the tear film faster than still air, and in winter, cold moving air does it while making your eyes sting and water.

• Wear wraparound sunglasses, or clear safety glasses after dark.
• Turn your back to the wind before using drops outdoors, or wait until you’re inside.
• At a fall football game by the lake, a hood over a brimmed cap blocks more wind than a knit hat.
• On the lakefront paths, start out into the wind and finish with it at your back.

Furnace season in Northeast Ohio

NOAA counts about 5,516 heating degree days a year in Cleveland and about 947 cooling degree days, so heat runs the house for much of the year. Warming winter air indoors drops its relative humidity even though the outdoor table looks damp: NOAA lists Cleveland’s December and January afternoons at 70 percent. Forced-air heat then carries that drier air past your face from a floor register or a ceiling vent.

Little adjustments help: a humidifier where you sleep, a register deflector by the couch, the furnace fan on auto, and a screen break with a few full blinks every so often, since screen work cuts the blink rate. In the car, send the heat to your feet and the defroster to the glass rather than your face.

Spring and summer

Afternoon humidity bottoms out at 56 percent in April, May and July, according to NOAA’s table. Those are the months for the Towpath Trail in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, the Metroparks, and long afternoons at Progressive Field. Sun, trail dust and a breeze off the water all add up; sunglasses and a bottle in your bag cover most of it.

Heat is a storage question too. The label says Store between 15° to 30°C (59° to 86°F). A car on a sunny lot in July runs far above that, so carry the bottle rather than leaving it in the console.

Where Quell fits

The tear film’s top layer is oil, and it slows evaporation from the water below. Quell is designed to reinforce the tear film’s oil layer to help reduce moisture loss. Its active ingredients are Glycerol (1.0%), Polysorbate 80 (1.0%) and Light Mineral Oil (0.5%), and the label gives the Uses as “For use as a protectant against further irritation or to relieve dryness of the eye.” Directions are simple: Apply 1 drop 3 times per day in each eye.

Keep the tip clean: Do not touch tip of bottle to any surface to avoid contamination. And if the bottle ever looks different from the label’s description, “Product appears as a milky brown solution,” the do-not-use line applies: If this product changes color. The complete panel is on the Drug Facts page.

Ordering Quell in Cleveland

Quell ships from Brentwood, Tennessee, to Cleveland, Lakewood, Parma, Shaker Heights and the rest of the country. Guest checkout is standard, shipping is $10.00, and 3 bottles or more ship at no charge. A tracking email follows once your package is on its way. Delivery dates aren’t promised, so give it some room before a stretch of lake-effect weather. Unopened bottles are refundable within 30 days of delivery without being sent back. Find out more on the Cleveland page or the Ohio page.

When to see a Cleveland eye doctor

Lasting or recurring dryness is something an eye doctor should look at, to work out the cause and what to do about it. The label says: Stop use and ask a doctor if you feel eye pain or changes in your vision, if irritation or redness continues, or if the condition worsens or persists for 72 hours.

Make an appointment for eye pain, a sudden change in vision, or symptoms in only one eye. The dry eye self-check helps you organize what you’ve noticed; it’s not a diagnosis.