Dry eye relief and eye drops in Los Angeles

Los Angeles air is drier than its beach reputation suggests. NOAA’s 1991–2020 normals give downtown just 14.25 inches of rain a year, almost none of it from May through September, and fall brings dry Santa Ana winds off the deserts. Quell is a lubricating eye drop that ships to LA addresses; working out what’s behind dryness that keeps coming back is an eye doctor’s job.

What NOAA’s records say about Los Angeles

NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information publishes 30-year climate normals for two stations most Angelenos would recognize: the downtown station on the USC campus and the one at LAX. Their numbers describe a city that gets nearly all of its rain in a few winter months and then goes without.

• Downtown averages 14.25 inches of precipitation a year. February is the wettest month, at 3.64 inches.
• December through February deliver 9.41 of those inches, roughly two-thirds of the year’s total in a single season.
• August’s normal at the downtown station rounds to 0.00 inches. July’s is 0.02 and June’s 0.09.
• LAX, closer to the ocean, averages 12.23 inches a year, with normal highs running from 65.6°F in February to 76.7°F in August.
• Heat is a downtown story: 25.6 days a year reach 90°F or higher there, against 4.8 days at LAX.

The gap between two stations in the same city is the basin in miniature. The coast stays mild under ocean air, while neighborhoods farther inland heat up, dry out and run their air conditioning longer. Where you live and work in the county changes how much of each you get.

Why your eyes feel driest during Santa Ana season

NOAA’s Comparative Climatic Data table for the downtown station shows when the air carries the least moisture. November averages 51 percent relative humidity in the morning and 51 percent in the afternoon, and January’s afternoon average is 49 percent. June, by contrast, averages 65 percent in the morning and 60 in the afternoon. The late-fall dip lines up with the season when Santa Ana winds are familiar, blowing warm, dry air from the interior down through the mountain passes toward the coast.

Wind moves air across the surface of the eye faster, and dry wind takes moisture with it. On a gusty offshore day, a walk from a parking structure to an office lobby can be enough to leave your eyes gritty. A few habits limit the exposure:

• Wear wraparound sunglasses outdoors. They block wind coming from the side, which flat lenses let through.
• Keep car windows up on windy days, and point the dashboard vents at your chest instead of your face.
• Rinse your hands when you come inside from dust or ash in the air, before touching your eyes or the bottle.
• Run a humidifier in the bedroom on the driest nights, and clean it the way its maker describes.

June gloom and the marine layer

Late spring and early summer bring the gray mornings locals call May gray and June gloom, when a marine layer sits over the coastal plain and burns off, or doesn’t, by afternoon. Those are the most humid months in NOAA’s downtown table. Damp mornings don’t always reach your eyes, though. If you spend the day in an air-conditioned building or a car, the air you actually breathe has been cooled and dried, whatever the sky outside looks like.

Freeway commutes, air conditioning and screens

Daily life in LA adds its own dry spells. An hour on the 405 or the 10 with the air conditioning on high puts a steady stream of dry air across your face. Long edits, script reads and spreadsheet days do the rest: people blink less when they concentrate on a screen, and every skipped blink leaves the tear film exposed a little longer. Screens and your tear film covers that side of it.

• Aim car vents away from your eyes and use recirculate when traffic is heavy and slow.
• At a desk, move out of the direct path of a ceiling vent if you can.
• Look away from the screen every so often and blink fully a few times.
• Keep a water bottle at your desk; reaching for it is an easy cue to rest your eyes too.

Where Quell fits into an LA day

The tear film has three layers: oil on top, water beneath it and mucus against the eye. The oil slows evaporation from the water layer, and Quell is designed to reinforce the tear film’s oil layer to help reduce moisture loss. The directions on the carton are the same in every season: Apply 1 drop 3 times per day in each eye.

The label sets how many drops, not when. Someone with a long drive and an office day might use one before getting in the car, one after lunch and one in the evening. Set the times around your hardest stretches and keep them steady. Do not touch tip of bottle to any surface to avoid contamination, so cap the bottle right after each use, especially on a windy day when dust settles on everything.

Can you keep eye drops in a car in Los Angeles?

Quell’s label gives a storage range: Store between 15° to 30°C (59° to 86°F). Downtown’s normal high in August is 84.0°F, already close to the top of that range before you account for a parked car, which gets far hotter than the air around it. Carry the bottle in a bag that comes inside with you and keep spares in a drawer at home. Can you leave eye drops in a hot car? goes into more detail.

Ordering eye drops to a Los Angeles address

Quell ships within the United States from Brentwood, Tennessee, so there’s no store in LA to walk into. Standard shipping is $10.00, and orders of $89.00 or more, which is 3 bottles, ship free. No delivery date is promised, so order before your last bottle runs low. The Los Angeles page and the California page have more about ordering from the area.

When it isn’t just the weather

Dry air explains a lot in Los Angeles, but not everything. If your eyes still bother you on calm, mild days, or anything about your vision changes, see an eye doctor; figuring out the cause and what to do about it is their work, not a drop’s. The label is plain about when to stop: 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.