Dry eye relief in Spokane, Washington

Dry eye relief in Spokane depends on the season. July and August afternoons are among the driest in the Pacific Northwest, with humidity in the 20s, and winter brings months of forced-air heat. Keep vents and fans off your face, blink fully during screen work, and use a lubricating drop exactly as its label directs. Pain, vision changes or dryness that won’t settle need an eye doctor.

Spokane is not the rainy side of Washington

People who move here from Seattle are often surprised. The Cascades wring most of the Pacific moisture out of the air before it reaches the Inland Northwest, and NOAA’s 1991 to 2020 normals for Spokane International Airport show the result:

• About 16.45 inches of precipitation in a normal year, less than half of what falls at Sea-Tac.
• July averages 0.42 inches and August 0.47, so the summer months together see only about 2 inches.
• December is the wettest month at 2.34 inches, much of it as snow.
• Normal snowfall is 45.4 inches a year, with December (13.8 inches) and January (12.3) leading.
• The station sits at about 717 meters, roughly 2,350 feet above sea level.

In other words, Spokane has a semi-arid summer and a snowy winter, and both work against the thin film of tears on your eyes for different reasons.

Summer afternoons in the 20s

NOAA’s relative humidity table gives Spokane a July afternoon average of 26 percent and August 27 percent. Mornings are far damper, near 59 percent in July, which is why eyes often feel fine at breakfast and scratchy by mid-afternoon. Normal July highs reach 84.4°F, and the airport logs about 21 days a year at 90°F or hotter.

Dry, warm air pulls water from the tear film faster than cool, damp air does. Add a breeze off the Palouse or a long afternoon on the water at Lake Coeur d’Alene and the effect builds. Some habits that help on those days:

• Wear wraparound sunglasses outdoors, which cut wind across the eye as well as glare.
• Do outdoor chores and runs in the morning, when the humidity is roughly double the afternoon figure.
• Aim car vents at your chest instead of your face on the drive home with the air conditioning running.
• Take short screen breaks indoors, since air-conditioned offices dry the air further.

Snow outside, dry heat inside

Winter flips the outdoor picture. Afternoon humidity in December averages 83 percent, and the air often feels raw and damp. Indoors is a different story. With 132 nights a year at or below freezing and about 34 days when the high never climbs past 32°F, Spokane furnaces run hard from November into March. Heating cold air without adding water lowers its relative humidity, so a house can feel desert-dry while it snows outside.

Ski days on Mt. Spokane add cold wind on top. Goggles help more than sunglasses on the lift. At home, a humidifier in the bedroom and closed heat registers near your favorite chair can make the evenings more comfortable. Our guide to winter heating and dry eyes walks through the changes room by room.

What the label covers

Quell is a lubricating drop designed to reinforce the tear film’s oil layer to help reduce moisture loss, which is the problem both a dry August afternoon and a heated January living room create. Its Drug Facts panel lists the Uses as: 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. Every time, follow the handling line: Do not touch tip of bottle to any surface to avoid contamination.

Read one warning first: Caution should be used in those with egg or bird allergies — For use in the eyes only. The label also says how to store it: Store between 15° to 30°C (59° to 86°F). A car parked at a trailhead in July can climb well past that range, and one left at the airport lot in January can fall below it, so keep the bottle in a bag that comes inside with you. The whole panel is on our Drug Facts page.

Getting Quell in Spokane

Orders ship from Brentwood, Tennessee, to addresses across the United States, including Spokane and Spokane Valley. There’s no account to create: checkout works as a guest, shipping is $10.00, and 3 or more bottles ship free. We send a shipping email with tracking, but we don’t promise a delivery date, so order before you run out. An unopened bottle can be refunded within 30 days of delivery without sending it back. See the Spokane page or the Washington page, or order from the home page.

When to see a Spokane eye doctor

A drop is meant for everyday dryness and irritation. Working out the cause of symptoms that keep coming back belongs to an eye doctor, and the label is clear 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.

If your eyes hurt, your vision changes, or one eye bothers you much more than the other, make an appointment rather than reaching for another bottle. Our list of eye symptoms that need a doctor covers the warning signs, and the dry eye self-check can help you put your symptoms into words before the visit; it’s not a diagnosis.