Each time you blink, your eyelids coat your eyes with tears. This helps to lubricate and protect your eyes. The tears drain away into tiny openings called tear ducts, which are located on the inside of your eyelids.
However, if your eyelid droops away from your eye, it can disrupt the process of draining the tears away, which can trigger a number of possible symptoms, such as:
- watery eyes
- dry eyes
- infection
These are briefly described below.
Watery eyes
Watery eyes is the most common symptom of ectropion. It occurs when tears do not drain properly and build up inside your drooping eyelid. If you have the condition it is likely that you will have to wipe tears away from your eye constantly. This often leads to discomfort, redness and more watering.
Dry eyes
Alternatively, your affected eye can become dry, sore and red because your drooping lower eyelid prevents your eye from closing properly and old tears from draining away. Your eye will become exposed to the air and will not be bathed in fresh tears.
Infection
If your tears cannot drain properly, bacteria are not cleaned away from the surface of your eye. This makes the surface of your eye vulnerable to infection.
This is known as infective conjunctivitis. Some of the symptoms of infective conjunctivitis are similar to those of ectropion, such as redness and watering of the eye. You may also experience mild eye pain and a sticky coating on your eyelashes when you wake up.
See Infective conjunctivitis for more information.
When to seek medical advice
Contact your GP if you think that either you or your child has developed ectropion. The condition is relatively straightforward to treat.
However, if left untreated, it could result in some permanent vision loss.
