Dry eye relief in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh’s dry eyes usually start indoors. NOAA’s airport records show about 114 nights a year at or below freezing, so furnaces and radiators in the city’s older rowhouses run for months, and heated air pulls moisture off the eye. April adds the driest outdoor afternoons of the year. A humidifier, vents aimed away from your face, screen breaks and a lubricating drop used as labeled help. Lasting symptoms need an eye doctor.

Pittsburgh weather in numbers

Pittsburgh’s official weather records come from Pittsburgh International Airport, west of the city at about 1,200 feet above sea level. NOAA’s 1991 to 2020 normals for that station show:

• A January normal high of 36.3°F and a low of 21.4°F.
• About 114 nights a year at 32°F or colder, and roughly two below zero.
• Around 32 days a year when the temperature never rises above freezing.
• 44.1 inches of snow in a typical winter, with January the snowiest month at 13.3 inches.
• 39.6 inches of precipitation, wettest in July and lightest in October and December.
• About 86 days a year with a tenth of an inch or more of rain or melted snow.

Gray, damp winters that still dry your eyes

Pittsburgh winters have a reputation for low, gray skies, and NOAA’s humidity table agrees that the air outside is moist: January and December afternoons both average 66 percent relative humidity. It can feel raw and clammy on Grant Street in January.

That moisture doesn’t survive the trip indoors. Air at 21°F holds very little water to begin with, and when a furnace warms it to room temperature its relative humidity drops a long way. The result is a city where the sky looks wet and the living room is dry. Our guide to dry eyes from cold air explains why both things are true at once.

Spring is the driest stretch outdoors

The same NOAA table shows Pittsburgh’s afternoon humidity falling to 56 percent in March and 50 percent in April, the lowest of the year, before rising again in May. Early spring brings brighter days, gusty fronts and trees not yet in leaf. If your eyes feel worst around opening day at PNC Park, that’s consistent with the record.

Hills, rivers and rowhouses

The Allegheny and Monongahela rivers meet downtown to form the Ohio, and the neighborhoods climb the steep hills around them. Daily life here has its own dry-eye triggers:

• Brick rowhouses and older homes in places like Lawrenceville, Bloomfield and the South Side often run on steam or hot-water radiators that can’t be turned down room by room.
• Wind tends to funnel along the river valleys and across the bridges, so a walk over the Roberto Clemente Bridge on a January game day is breezier than the streets behind it.
• Steep streets and city steps mean bundled-up walks that end in an overheated bus, incline car or office.
• Hospitals and universities employ a big share of the city, and both mean long hours under forced-air heat, often in front of screens.

Small changes that work in a Pittsburgh house

• Run a humidifier in the room where you sleep, and clean it as its maker directs.
• If a radiator sits under the bed or next to your desk chair, move the furniture rather than your face closer to the heat.
• Keep car vents pointed at the windshield and floor on the drive in on the Parkway.
• Look away from a screen every 20 minutes and blink fully a few times; concentration cuts the blink rate.
• Drink water through the day, since heated air dries more than just your eyes.

What Quell’s label says

Quell is an over-the-counter lubricating drop made by Aurora Pharmaceuticals, LLC. The label’s Uses line reads: For use as a protectant against further irritation or to relieve dryness of the eye. The directions read: Apply 1 drop 3 times per day in each eye. It’s designed to reinforce the tear film’s oil layer to help reduce moisture loss, which matters most in a dry, heated room.

Each bottle holds .33 fl oz (10 mL), and the storage line reads: Store between 15° to 30°C (59° to 86°F). On a single-digit morning a bottle left in a car parked on a hillside street can get colder than that, so keep it in a pocket or bag. The label also notes: The eye drops have a naturally milky-brown appearance. This is normal and does not indicate a problem with the product. If you use contact lenses or other eye drops, the label doesn’t cover combining them, so ask your eye doctor or pharmacist.

Ordering Quell in Pittsburgh and when to see a doctor

Quell ships from Brentwood, Tennessee, to Pittsburgh and every other US address, with no account needed and no promised delivery date. Local details are on the Pittsburgh page and the Pennsylvania page.

If dryness keeps coming back no matter what you change at home, that’s a reason to book an exam. Finding out why it’s happening and what to do about it is an eye doctor’s job. 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. For more, see eye symptoms that need a doctor.