Dry skin under the eyes
Under the eyes dry skin develops quickly. Dry air in winter due to heating, sunlight or care products and cosmetics quickly dry out the sensitive skin around the eyes.It can also be the expression of an allergic reaction or infection. Care products in particular can cause allergic reactions in the eyes.
Neurodermatitis can also dry out the skin around the eyes. A dangerous and very painful disease, which can also lead to dry skin in an initial stage, is a herpes disease of the eyes. The dry skin has small lesions through which further pathogens can penetrate the skin and thus cause inflammation of the eyelids.
Therapeutically, care products should be used sparingly and the skin should not be washed too often. Products containing urea should be applied carefully to the eye. Bepanthen ointment is well suited, of which there is also a special cream for use on the eye and nose.
Causes of dry skin
The causes of dry skin (xeroderma) are very diverse and depend not least on age and state of health. There are various external factors that can be considered as causes of dry skin. One of these is prolonged cold.
For example, the skin on the face after a winter walk usually feels very dry and rough, as the cold draws fluid from the skin. Extreme heat can also lead to dry skin, as a lot of fluid is lost through sweating. Even after a hot bath or a long swim, dry skin can occur.
Salt water in particular can be considered a cause of dry skin, since the water also extracts a lot of liquid from the skin together with the salt. For particularly sensitive patients, however, sometimes even simple stimuli, such as wearing wool sweaters, are enough to cause dry skin. Besides these external causes, there are many “internal” causes that can be blamed for dry skin.
On the one hand, a lack of fluid very quickly leads to dry skin, especially if the patient evaporates (sweats) a lot. But also a wrong or too one-sided nutrition can dry out the skin or lead to impurities like pimples. The psyche can also be a cause of too dry skin, but this factor usually plays a minor role.
This point only becomes important when it is a matter of psychic compulsive behavior. Patients with a compulsive washing disorder sometimes wash their skin 5-7 times a day and scrub the important oily film off the skin with a brush so that the skin no longer has a protective barrier and dries out. In addition to the psychological, internal or external causes of dry skin, there are also various skin diseases or even medications that lead to cracked, dry skin.
Neurodermatitis in particular is a disease in which the skin is extremely dry, reddened and itchy. But psoriasis, diabetes mellitus, hypothyroidism or eczema can also be the cause of dry skin. But age also plays a decisive role.
The older a patient becomes, the less sebum (fat) the sebaceous glands produce in the skin. Accordingly, the protective lipid film on the skin is missing and the skin becomes cracked and brittle. This reduced production of sebum is called sebostasis.
The last cause of dry skin is the use of stimulants such as alcohol or cigarettes. Alcohol deprives the body of valuable fluids as the body loses more fluid through sweating after drinking alcohol. When smoking, toxins and nicotine cause a poorer blood circulation of the skin and thus a loss of liquid, which can be considered as a cause for too dry skin.
Most people diagnose dry skin on themselves, as the symptoms are very characteristic and clear. If you go to a doctor with this complaint, they will first conduct a detailed interview. The anamnesis should at least include the questions when and for how long the affected person suffers from the symptoms, whether he/she regularly takes certain medications, whether he/she has other underlying diseases or allergies, whether the diet has been changed recently and whether there are perhaps other accompanying symptoms.
In addition, there are of course many other points that the doctor can work through to find out the cause of dry skin. This is followed by a physical examination, which is intended to confirm the diagnosis and can also determine the severity of the dry skin more precisely.There are special devices that can precisely determine the water and fat content of the skin surface and also measure roughness. In addition, an allergy test should definitely be carried out to rule out that an allergy causes dry skin.
If, after this first impression, the physician suspects a certain underlying disease (some of the possible causes: see Causes), he or she will initiate different examinations according to this suspicion. These could include a blood or stool test. Imaging procedures such as an X-ray or ultrasound may also be necessary. The physician may also perform a colonoscopy, during which he can simultaneously take a sample of the tissue (biopsy).