Best Natural Remedies for Dry Eyes: Relief & Eye Health Tips

Apple Cider Vinegar

Posted by Hien (Houston, Tx) on 07/18/2009
★★★★★

5 parts of water 2 parts of honey and 1 part of apple cider vinegar. I had sandy, red eyes i went to see three eyes doctor, after 4 times seeing them they all gave me antibiotic and said i have eyes infection and dry. I keep using the antibiotic but i can tell not getting better, last night look online and found this lady has the same problem like mine, she gave out this home remedy, i use it since last night and this morning i feel much better, i went back to the site trying to say thank you, but i could not find it ,well thank you if you happen to get on this site. Hien Hoang

Apple Cider Vinegar

Posted by Glynis (Springfield, Mo) on 01/16/2015
★★★★☆

Thank you, thank you, thank you. My eyes hurt so bad I could barely read the instructions. Could not figure out if I was supposed to use recipe as an eye wash or wipe my eyelids with it. Tried as a wash (burned) added two more parts of water (still burned) then wiped on eyelid (did not burn). I continued wiping my eyelids with the solution and received soothing. Eye are still somewhat sore but will continue to use. Thank you to Earthclinic and all who reply and read. Thank you.

Fish or Flax Seed Oil

Posted by Elise (Perth, Wa Australia) on 08/01/2010

To Marty from Nashville, Tennessee

I would also suggest applying castor oil to your eyes at night before bed. I wrote a thing about it above. I apply two drops in each eye before bed. My eyes never water anymore or sting. The whites are also much much whiter and the blue is much brighter. This happened after about 2 days :)

Elise

Oil Pulling

Posted by Liberty (Greeley, CO) on 09/08/2008
★★★★★

If I eat too much sugar (candy, sweets, etc) I can expect to have dry eyes when I wake up the next morning. I have been using oil pulling for around 3 years now off and on. I have been able to use the oil pulling to eliminate the dry eyes and it does so quickly. It seems that it also helps clear the sugar from my system faster. I have used olive oil and sunflower oil. Olive oil does work but sunflower does seem to be better. Oil pulling has helped with several other things also. I use 2 teaspoons (1 Tablespoon was too much for me). I follow the recommended procedure and rinse w/ peroxide/water mixed 50/50.

Fish or Flax Seed Oil

Posted by Tina (Seattle, Washington ) on 02/15/2022
★★★★★

Flaxseed oil is amazing for dry mouth & dry eyes - I noticed a difference within just a few days - I highly recommend this remedy if you are suffering from these issues like I was.

L-Carnosine

Posted by HisJewel (New York) on 11/01/2022

Regarding Salty Mouth:

One of the problems with a salty taste in the mouth, or I can even say it's a salt leak that comes down between my two front teeth, is that this overworks my tongue as I try to stop the leak.

Mama to Many, thank you for the Spry mints suggestion, they hide the salt taste that's in my mouth so that my tongue can rest. Not only are they good for the teeth, but they are also only one calorie. Love them!

One of the things I do to slow down the drain of salt is shape a covering for a tooth or two with tooth beads. I do have a missing tooth that I made a tooth for. This works great when I go out, and when I sleep at night. I don't hurt my tongue now, because I don't keep licking my teeth when the fake teeth are in. An Amazon customer said once they swallowed their fake tooth so make sure it fits right.

I just make it so it curves my gum a little in the front. Then all that delicious salty taste slides by my gums. If I need the fake teeth higher behind my teeth, I make some like that too. Each order has plenty of tooth beads. I added the Amazon bar so you can see what tooth beads are.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Temporary+Tooth+Repair+Kit-Thermal+Beads&i=hpc&crid=3BW5MA50L81FX&sprefix=temporary+tooth+repair+kit-thermal+beads+,hpc,150&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

HisJewel

Castor Oil

Posted by Sherry (Phoenix ) on 03/22/2020
★★★★★

I have posted before that Organic cold pressed castor oil that I transfer to a dropper bottle has helped my dry eyes. Put in each eye when I'm ready to go to sleep, also if I wake up during the night. When I get up in the morning I use eye drops. Castor oil does not cure dry eyes but make it better, otherwise they water all day. I also mail dropper bottles to my 90 year old aunt. She said with this her eyes don't water all day. Keep the large bottle of castor oil that you purchased in refrigerator.

Supplements

Posted by Rexreid1111 (Sarasota, Fl, Usa) on 10/17/2016
★★★★★

I work in moms nutrition store every now and then. I just heard a good testimony so I'm posting it. There is a supplement "Eye formula" that you take internally that helps relieve dry eyes rather quickly. Ingredients in the "Eye formula" are: omega 3 (70% better absorbed then regular fish oil), lutein, zeaxanthin, astaxanathin, blueberry extract, grape seed extract).

Fish or Flax Seed Oil

Posted by Cindy (Northern California) on 09/20/2016
★★★★★

1 capsule a day of Flax Seed Oil keeps dry eyes away for me.

Castor Oil

Posted by Mama To Many (Tennessee) on 01/24/2016

Yes, I too find that castor oil burns a bit and blurs the vision because of the oil. By morning though it is not blurry.

You could try just putting the castor oil on your eyelids. It is quite penetrating and that may achieve your goal, even as well as putting it into your eyes.

Or try Dave's formula for dry eyes.

~Mama to Many~

Hydrosol Silver

Posted by Hwkmn05 (Nh) on 01/04/2016 109 posts
★★★★★

Dry Eyes:

Hydrosol silver worked for me after suffering for one week.

Also, at night, I applied coconut oil on outside lids and inside eyes. This helped with the grit build up. You may have to get up a couple of times in the evening to re apply, but it does offer some relief for sleeping.

Coconut Oil and Coconut Milk

Posted by Lilypad (Australia) on 11/30/2015
★★★★★

Dry Eyes:

For those of you whose eyes are too sensitive to agree with anything (eg. castor oil), I highly recommend using coconut oil and coconut milk internally. I had very bad dry eyes for 3 nights, could not open my eyes when I woke up and stressing about the long term pain made it even worse. Also trying everything from OTC to natural remedies in my eyes all made them worse. I decided to eat coconut oil and drink coconut milk and eat a lot really healthy food, have faith in my body's natural healing and plenty of sleep for 2 days and my eyes have gone back to pretty much normal. Your body has a natural healing power with the right fuel and you need to have faith in it, too.

Good luck!

Humidifier, Change of Location

Posted by Rhonda (Lakewood, Ca) on 11/29/2015
★★★★★

The symptoms of my dry eyes are watery eyes. I live in LA, where the air has been dry, hot, and polluted. I notice that every time I leave town to go up to Northern California, my dry eyes goes away. I've made about four trips this month to visit my mother and sisters. I also notice that using my humidifier has also made it all but disappear.

Blood Serum Drops

Posted by Jt (Tucson, Az) on 07/25/2015
★★★★★

A natural treatment for dry eyes that your doctor can prescribe is blood serum drops. Your blood is drawn, sent to a compounding pharmacy and is specific to you. The recommended dose is 4 times a day, but you can use as often as you like. The prescription is a 6 month supply, which is in a individual syringes and must be kept in the freezer. A syringe can be kept for a week in the refrigerator, using 4 times a day last about 5 days.

I have been using the treatment for 6 weeks. At my check up I had moderate improvement, at only a quarter of the way through the prescription. Our blood serum carries stem cells, so effectively we are healing ourselves.

The blood draw was $40 and the prescription was $265, even though it is spendy, at $50 a month it is certainly worth a try.

Judith

Multiple Remedies

Posted by Jamie (Australia) on 10/05/2014

I have been cured of dry eyes now for several years. As a disease, it can really mess with your life. Physically, emotionally, even socially, it can be very distressing.

As others have mentioned here, natural cures for dry eyes can include fish oils, drinking more water, reducing caffeinated beverages and more.

My solution for dry eyes included some of the above plus the following which are key:

- balanced hormones. There are plenty of studies that point to imbalances between key hormones leading to meibomian and lacrimal gland dysfunctions. Menopausal women are especially susceptible to this.

- a balanced, whole foods diet. Cut the processed foods, add a detox. It works very well if you can stick to it.

- Vitamin C + magnesium. Again, studies and Opthalmology reports indicate Vitamin C is very beneficial and magnesium is not only of benefit to eye health but also a lot of Naturopaths secret weapon.

Multiple Remedies

Posted by Prioris (Fl, US) on 10/07/2014

How old are you and what kind of joint pain is it ?

Unless injured, joint pain means you have an infection.

As an aside, I have had ME/CFS since very young. I have an upregulated immune system. I rarely got colds but had many internal infections.

That vitamin C should be OK but you may have to test many things to see what works.

There are many things to try for joint pain

Look into

1200 GDU ENTERIC Bromelain capsules.

Biocell

Fish or Flax Seed Oil

Posted by Wayne (Andrews, IN) on 08/14/2014

My eyes were becoming dry to the point a blister appeared on my eye. My wife suggested seeing the eye doctor, grudgingly I agreed. The Doctor asked me if I had arthritis and I told him my shoulder hurt and to raise my arm over my head was difficult. He informed me that the material in my shoulder was similar to the makeup of my tear glands and my immune system was attacking both.

He brought out a couple packets of flaxseed oil and told me this might help. Well I was already taking 3 tablespoons of flaxseed oil and 3 tablespoons of codliver oil a day. I decided to take 20 tablespoons of codliver oil a day because he reinforced my initial efforts and I thought this was the proper course. I thank god to say my eyes started watering and my shoulder quit hurting.

I eventually changed to sardine and anchovy fish oil capsules because they were cheaper ($5.00 for 150 capsules). The dose of 40 capsules a day. Each capsule contains EPA 180 mg and DHA 120 mg. The capsules didn't agree with me for some reason so I would chew the capsules and spit them out. There is no fishy taste for me I have been doing this for several years now with consistently good results. I have tried reducing the dose but 40 a day works for me. You need to experiment to find the proper dose.

If you talk to people who grew up in the 1930s and 1940s they were given codliver oil everyday by their parents. Obviously the parents knew of the benefits or were simply carrying on tradition but their children ended the tradition not realizing the benefits afforded them because they were ignorant and or the taste wasn't pleasant.

Lactoferrin

Posted by Steven (New Jersey, Usa) on 01/13/2014
★★★★★

350mg of Lactoferrin helped my chronic dry eye from day one. For years I have been waking up with eye pain almost every day. I started taking lactoferrin for iron absorption and I noticed I didn't have dry eye pain for days. Looked it up and found a few mentions that lactoferrin helps. It has continued for weeks now, with only one or two days where I had pain. This is remarkable because I had the pain for probably two years daily.

Lactoferrin

Posted by Dave (Fountain Inn, Sc) on 01/14/2014

Greetings Steve from N.J.,

I have another help for dry eyes; at least it sure helps me. Dry eyes have been such a plague to me over the years.

The very best thing that I've found is to take a half teaspoon of baking soda in a half glass of purified water and dissolve of course. With clean finger tips or paper towel just dab onto closed eyelids. Wipe clean and re-apply. The alkaline topical soothes the burning eyes. Almost instant relief. My dry eyes come, I believe, from an acidic condition overall and I can correlate the "burning eyes" to too much coffee or other acid foods, eg hot pepper salsa.

Castor Oil

Posted by Jill (Chicago, IL) on 12/22/2014

I just started using castor oil last nite after researching and stumbling upon Earth Clinic. Did you feel immediate relief or did it take a few applications?

Castor Oil

Posted by Trudyg (USA) on 07/13/2013
★★★★★

I've been using castor oil--1 drop per eye at bedtime--for dry eyes. My contacts the next day are comfortable well into the evening, where before I was wanting them out by lunchtime. I just wash my eyelids w/ baby shampoo and blink several times to get some in my eyes and no problem w/ oil on contacts. Baby shampoo has something in it that numbs the eye so it doesn't feel the sting. Hate that for the kids (drug them) but I can do a drop or 2 per day and don't feel that's too much chemical. Had styes for years until I started washing w/ baby shampoo.

Castor Oil

Posted by Ignatz (San Francisco, Ca) on 01/13/2014

Hi Miracles - I was just curious whereabouts in Santa Monica you bought the oil with a dropper? I'm around the area a lot but have never seen castor oil sold that way and it sounds terrific. I'm longing to try this as nothing has worked for my chronically red eyes yet, but I maintain hope! Thanks so much for any info.

Castor Oil

Posted by MC (Montana) on 03/01/2024
★★★★★

Buy heritage organic, hexene free castor oil in a glass bottle, 20 bucks for 16 ounces. then buy an empty glass dropper. This will last you 6 months or more. Keep the castor oil in your refrigerator, it keeps for a very long time. you can order both glass droppers and Heritage on line or I can order it at our local health food store, Natural Grocers. Castor oil has many beneficial applications. Buying your products in glass and keeping them in glass is preferred.

Castor Oil

Posted by Liz (Boston, Massachusetts) on 01/15/2014

You can buy a dropper separately. That's what I did. Most of the big chain pharmacies have them in the eye care section.

Castor Oil

Posted by Tabitha (California, US) on 04/13/2015

I've been using castor oil on my eyes for a while now. Really seems to help the lashes and the itchiness which I used to blame on allergies but now I realize is probably blepharitis/MGD. My opth confirmed that I have Meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD) and am producing "sticky oil" that does not provide a good tear film. He put collagen plugs in my tear ducts but recommends cauterization?

Castor oil really helps but I am wondering if anyone has any good info on how to solve the MGD? I am not even 40 yet and I thought this was something you only got with menopause :( Any advice?

Castor Oil

Posted by Janet Sakata (Whittier Ca ) on 04/02/2018

Castor oil sounds wonderful for cataract and macular degeneration which I have along with dry eyes. How can I safely sterilize the amber glass bottles with eye dropper so I can put the castor oil drops into my eyes?

Castor Oil

Posted by Prioris (Fl, US) on 10/07/2014

The unknown is scary isn't it... lol

Your eyeball will just feel greasy otherwise you won't feel a thing. it's safe. 10 seconds after you do it, that fear will disappear. So go ahead.

Sauerkraut

Posted by Brandon (Chicago, Illinois) on 03/21/2013
★★★★★

Sauerkraut REALLY works right away to help with dry eyes!! Make sure the kind you get is RAW, Live, Organic, Unheated, and Unpasteurized with no vinegar. Most health food stores carry this kind. It really works!

Cod Liver Oil

Posted by Suzeaa (Nashua, Nh) on 07/04/2012
★★★★★

I have both Sjogrens and lupus, and my eyes were so dry I could barely open them. They were also so sensitive to light it was dangerous to drive. I work with a computer all day, and that certainly doesn't help. My eye doctor suggested Restasis, but I wanted to try a more holistic approach. OTC eye drops only worked for a short time, and made my vision blurry for 30 minutes after.

So I came here and read about using Castor Oil on the lids at night. Well, I didn't have any Castor Oil but I did have a high quality Cod Liver oil, so I opened a gel cap and spread the oil on my eyelids (and my dry elbows) before bed time to give it a try. The very next morning my eyes felt soooo much better! WOW! And it lasts all day. I didn't even need the eye drops. What a Godsend! I skipped a night the other day and my eyes felt much drier that day, so now I don't skip a night. Been doing it for two weeks now, and feel so much better, and my eyes aren't red anymore, either. Thank you!!!

Castor Oil

Posted by Wolf (Nj, Usa) on 01/05/2017

Kelly is correct that the castor seed contains the cytotoxin ricin. She is also correct that castor OIL does NOT contain ricin. But she is mistaken as to why.

Ricin is a water soluble protein and is partitioned out during oil extraction - whether hot or cold. That said, it is possible for small amounts of ricin to be present if the processing is not pharmacy grade, or therapeutic grade (such sub grade castor oils might be sold at a grocery store). So while it may seem obvious, if someone is looking to use ANY product in their eye (or body) significant thought and care must be taken to choose a quality product.

Note: Both the medical and natural health communities agree that (quality grade) castor oil is safe for use in the eye. And it has been literally used for millennia. Any of this information can be easily verified by doing very simple searches using your favorite search service (google anyone?). For instance, "Does castor oil contain ricin"?

Castor Oil

Posted by Wolf (Nj, Usa) on 01/05/2017

I just reread my previous post. I didn't mean to discount the fact that the ricin protein can be denatured by heat - all proteins can be denatured (sorry Kelly). And that method is in fact used to destroy residual ricin in some (cost/quality trade-off) processing methods. I was too focused on addressing that therapeutic grade castor oil (cold pressed, hexane free, etc) use better processing methods for extracting the oil so that there is no need to use heat to "clean up" the oil.

Castor Oil

Posted by Atul (Maharashtra, India) on 01/27/2015
★★★★★

Put some drops of honey in your eyes. You will fill irritation for few sec. and your eyes will become red but don't fear. It will sign of increase blood circulation in your eyes.After some time you will fill cool.This remedy is very useful for eyes.It has no side effect, no harmful.I always use the remedy for eye's health.

Aloe Vera, Avoid Coffee

Posted by Om (Hope, Bc Canada) on 08/19/2014

Please read up on cold pressed castor oil. Namaste, Om

Fish or Flax Seed Oil

Posted by Dave (Fountain Inn, Sc) on 09/27/2011

Hello Jc: Do you mean application topically on the eyelid with an omega oil? Or oral consumpiton of an omega capsule? Years ago I read in the book "Vita-Nutrients" that Dr Adkins suggested the omegas be taken orally for dry eyes and so I tried two capsules of high quality Omega 3, 6 and 9 daily. It did not help. So I presume, since I was talking about topical application of aloe vera liquid, that you are suggesting the same, but with the Omega. I notice in this section that many people suggest the use of castor oil dropped onto the eyeball. I tried that too, and it was also beneficial.

As for the coffee elimination (or extreme limitation since I cannot completely do without fresh ground once or twice a week), the reduced consumption of coffee goes a long way in reducing the problem of "burning eyes. " Finally, try one teaspoon of baking soda three times daily to deal with systemic (total body) acidic condition. Thus, I have actually recommended four steps to get control of "dry eyes."

1. Eye-lid application of aloe vera liquid. (Buy a really potent brand. ) By the way, sometimes you will actually feel a kind of "grime layer" on the eye lids when you apply the aloe. If so, take a tissue and wipe off and reapply a light coating of aloe vera liquid. (You could use aloe vera gel too but I use the liquid and apply topically and then also drink four or five tablespoons of aloe in addition. Aloe is wonderful for you.)

2. A drop in each eye of castor oil at bedtime.

3. Avoid the acidic drinks and foods; coffee (de-caff too is acidic), too much tomato products, hot peppers etc.

4. Make sure your are alkalized. If your body condition is acidic, you will have all kinds of problems; dry eye, "irritable leg syndrome, " various skin irritations... So use baking soda three times daily/ one teaspoon with each dose until you can "feel" the difference. (You will find more discussion on acidic/alkalizing issues under the section in Ailments (Earth Clinic of course) "Cancer" wherein "Ted from Bangcok" writes quite convincingly.