Dry eyes on long nursing shifts

Nurses’ eyes take a lot on a 12-hour shift: dry, climate-controlled hospital air, masks that can push exhaled air upward, face shields, and hours of charting at a screen. Lubricating drops belong on a scheduled break, after washing your hands, away from patient care. Quell’s directions, Apply 1 drop 3 times per day in each eye, line up well with the start, middle and end of a shift.

What a shift does to your eyes

Hospitals keep their air tightly controlled, and in many units that means air that’s cool, constantly moving and low in moisture. Add the length of the shift and the eyes are exposed to it far longer than in a typical workday. The pattern is familiar to a lot of nurses: fine at the 7 o’clock huddle, gritty by the afternoon med pass, and heavy-lidded on the drive home.

Masks, shields and goggles

• Surgical masks and respirators that don’t seal well over the bridge of the nose let exhaled air escape upward and across the eyes with every breath. Pinching the nose wire snugly so the mask hugs the bridge keeps more of that air down.
• Face shields and goggles block splashes, and they also block some airflow from the room. They can trap warmth and fog up, which leads to adjusting them with gloved hands; try to set them once and leave them.
• When you take PPE off, follow your unit’s doffing order and perform hand hygiene before touching your face or eyes.

Charting screens and workstations on wheels

Documentation pulls nurses to screens for a large share of each shift, often at a workstation on wheels set to someone else’s height. Concentrating on a screen slows blinking. Lower the screen so you look slightly down at it, if the cart allows, and look across the unit for a few seconds when you finish each note. Small habits add up over 12 hours.

When to use drops during a shift

Three drops a day lines up naturally with a three-part shift. A pattern that suits a day shift:

• Before you leave home or in the locker room before report.
• At your meal break, roughly halfway through the shift.
• In the locker room at the end of the shift, before the drive home.

Night shift flips the clock, not the count. Use the same three anchors (before report, meal break, end of shift), so that the routine holds whether you work days, nights or a rotating schedule. The label sets three drops a day, and a 12-hour shift doesn’t extend it. Can I use more than three drops a day? covers what to do if three don’t feel like enough.

Hand hygiene before your own drops

Nurses know hand hygiene better than anyone, but personal drops are easy to rush on a short break. Wash with soap and water rather than relying only on a rub, since alcohol-based sanitizer left on fingers stings near the eyes. Use your drops in a break room or locker room, not at the nurses’ station or in a patient area. The label’s instruction applies: Do not touch tip of bottle to any surface to avoid contamination. Don’t share a bottle with a coworker, even on a hard night.

Where to keep the bottle at work

A scrub pocket gets warm against your body and also goes everywhere you go, including patient rooms. A locker or a bag in the break room is a better home for it. The label says Store between 15° to 30°C (59° to 86°F), and most break rooms sit comfortably in that range. Don’t leave it in a car in the staff lot during a summer shift; can you leave eye drops in a hot car? explains why.

Check whether your facility has a policy on personal medications at work; some ask staff to keep them in lockers rather than on the unit.

Days off and the drive home

After a run of three or four shifts, tired eyes can carry into the first day off. Point the car vents away from your face on the drive home, especially after a night shift when you’re already worn out. If your eyes feel dry even on days you haven’t worked, that’s worth noting for your eye doctor. Quell is designed to reinforce the tear film’s oil layer to help reduce moisture loss; the tear film’s oil layer explains how that layer works.

Contact lenses and other drops

Many nurses wear contacts under goggles or masks. Quell’s label doesn’t cover use with contact lenses or alongside other eye drops, so ask your eye doctor or a pharmacist before combining them; contact lenses and Quell has the questions to ask.

When to step back and see a doctor

Nurses are good at spotting warning signs in patients and often slower to act on their own. The label is explicit: 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. Don’t talk yourself out of an appointment because you’re used to tired eyes at the end of a shift.