Dry eye relief in Provo, Utah

Dry eye relief in Provo starts with the air. The city sits around 4,570 feet, July afternoons up the Wasatch Front average about 21 percent humidity, and winter brings weeks of furnace heat. Blink fully at screens, keep vents off your face, wear sunglasses in canyon wind, and use a lubricating drop as its label directs. Eye pain, vision changes or dryness that won’t settle belong with an eye doctor.

Why Provo air is hard on your eyes

Provo is high desert with a lake and a mountain range attached. NOAA’s 1991 to 2020 climate normals for the Provo BYU weather station, on the east bench below Y Mountain, describe a place that is dry most of the year and very dry in summer:

• Normal precipitation is 17.19 inches a year, well under half of what falls in much of the eastern United States.
• June, July and August together bring only 2.17 inches, and July alone averages 0.51 inches.
• The station sits at 1,392.9 meters, which works out to roughly 4,570 feet above sea level.
• Normal snowfall is 44.9 inches, with January (12.5 inches) and December (11.2) the snowiest months.
• The average gap between the day’s high and low is about 26°F, a sign of thin, dry air that heats and cools fast.

Thin, dry air pulls moisture from any wet surface quickly, and the front of your eye is a wet surface. The tear film has an oil layer on top that slows that evaporation, a watery middle and a mucus layer against the eye. When the air is this dry, every one of those layers is working harder.

Summer afternoons near 20 percent

NOAA’s relative humidity table doesn’t list Provo, so the closest station it does list, Salt Lake City, up the valley, is the stand-in. There, July afternoons average 21 percent humidity and August 23 percent. June isn’t much better at 25 percent. Mornings are roughly twice as damp, which is why eyes can feel fine on an early walk along the Provo River Trail and gritty by mid-afternoon.

Heat adds to it. The BYU station’s normal July high is 95.2°F, and Provo logs about 73 days a year at 90°F or warmer, with around 9 that reach 100°F. A few habits that help through the hot months:

• Hike Y Mountain or the Bonneville Shoreline Trail early, before the humidity drops into the 20s.
• Wear wraparound sunglasses on Utah Lake, where wind travels a long way across open water.
• Point the car’s air conditioning at your chest, not your eyes, on the drive down Provo Canyon.
• Keep a water bottle handy; long, hot afternoons dry everything, eyes included.

Winter inversions, snow and furnace air

From November on, the problem moves indoors. The BYU station averages 111 nights a year at or below freezing and about a dozen days when the high stays at 32°F or lower. Furnaces in Provo run for months. Warming cold winter air without adding water drops its relative humidity sharply, so a dorm room or a house in Edgemont can feel parched while snow piles up outside. Outdoor afternoon humidity at Salt Lake City actually climbs to around 72 percent in December, which surprises people whose eyes feel worst in winter.

Ski days at Sundance or a weekend up the canyon add cold wind and glare off snow. Goggles block more of both than sunglasses do. At home, a humidifier in the bedroom and a closed register near the couch go a long way; our guide to winter heating and dry eyes has more room-by-room ideas.

Study sessions and screen time in Provo

Provo is a college town, and long hours in a library carrel or at a laptop add a second dry-eye factor on top of the climate. People blink less when they’re concentrating on a screen, and the blinks they do make are often partial. Each full blink spreads a fresh layer of tears; without them, the film thins and breaks up. During finals week, set a timer every 20 minutes to look across the room and blink fully a few times. Our guide on dry air, wind and altitude explains how elevation and screens combine.

What Quell’s label says

Quell is a lubricating eye drop designed to reinforce the tear film’s oil layer to help reduce moisture loss. Its Drug Facts panel states the Uses as: For use as a protectant against further irritation or to relieve dryness of the eye. The directions are: Apply 1 drop 3 times per day in each eye. While using it, follow this line every time: Do not touch tip of bottle to any surface to avoid contamination.

Read the warning before the first drop: Caution should be used in those with egg or bird allergies — For use in the eyes only. Storage matters in Utah because a car parked at a trailhead in July and a car left outside on a January night both go well outside the label’s range: Store between 15° to 30°C (59° to 86°F). Carry the bottle in a bag that comes inside with you. Everything else on the panel is on our Drug Facts page.

Ordering eye drops to Provo

Quell ships from Brentwood, Tennessee, to Provo, Orem and the rest of Utah County. Checkout works as a guest, shipping is $10.00, and 3 or more bottles ship free. You get a tracking email once it’s on its way, though no delivery date is promised, so order before the bottle runs low. Unopened bottles can be refunded within 30 days of delivery without sending them back. See the Provo page, the Utah page, or order from the home page.

When to see an eye doctor in Utah Valley

Drops are for everyday dryness. If symptoms keep returning or getting worse, working out the cause and what to do about it is an eye doctor’s job. The label is direct 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.

Pain, a change in how you see, or one eye that’s much worse than the other all call for an appointment, not another bottle. The dry eye self-check can help you describe what you’re feeling before the visit; it’s not a diagnosis. Our list of eye symptoms that need a doctor covers the urgent ones.