What causes watery eyes and how do you treat it?

Here at Clinica London, I see a lot of patients with watering eyes. They can be babies who have congenital watering eyes, or they can be adults in their 30s or 40s and they can get an acute lump at the corner here. And that can be an acute dacryocystitis. they possibly got a stone in the tear sac that sits here. Or it can happen in older people. As they are getting older so that the little tear duct that drains the tears from the eyes to the back of the nose. It gets gradually, progressively narrower and then blocked.
So most patients with watering eyes get assessed by me here at Clinica London and I do a syringing to see whether they’re patent, whether the fluid will go, through the back of the nose, into the throat. And then I look into the nose to make sure everything is fine in there. And then we decide whether they need surgery for the watering eyes.
You think of an acute lump here. The surgery can be done entirely from the inside of the nose. It all can be done from a very small skin incision in the tear through, where it heals absolutely fantastically. If it’s done with the tear through incision it can be done under a local anaesthetic, but if it’s done through the nose it’s been done under general anaesthetic.
Now the big “it”, I’ve been talking about, is called Dacryocystorhinostomy or DCR. So basically, if your aunt or your granny has a watery eye she may need a Dacryocystorhinostomy or DCR surgery. That’s something I specialise at here at Clinica London.
I’ve been doing DCRs professionally as an ophthalmologist oculoplastic surgeon since 1995. And I’ve particularly specialised in doing the DCR surgery through the inside of the nose, using a small torch, called an endoscope. So we sometime then call it endoscopic endonasal DCR.

More about Jane Olver

Ms Jane Olver is the founder of Clinica London and a Consultant Ophthalmologist and Oculoplastic Surgeon. Her special expertise is in oculoplastic and cosmetic eye surgery including eyelids and lacrimal surgery. She is specialised in endoscopic lacrimal surgery for watering eyes in adults and children. She has over 20 years’ experience in treating people with eye problems just like you, and has published extensively in scientific journals about Ophthalmology and Lacrimal Surgery and is the author of the books “Ophthalmology at a Glance” and “Colour Atlas of Lacrimal Surgery”. At Clinica London, she is responsible for the Aesthetic Medicine and Surgery part, as well as patients with eye, eyelid and tear duct problems, and acute eye problems.