What are my tears made of and why should I care? (posted: april 2003)
Summary: A healthy tear film has three layers: lipid (oily film on top which keeps tears from evaporating too quickly), aqueous (main watery part), and mucin (which helps tears adhere to the surface of the eye). If one or more of these layers is disrupted in some way, the tear film can be compromised and with it the ocular surface health.

Why is my tear film so important? (posted: april 2003)
Summary: Tears protect and nourish the surface of the eye and help refract light properly into the eye to produce vision.

What can be wrong with my tear film? (posted: april 2003)
Summary: The main problems are aqueous deficiency (not enough tears); dysfunction of the meibomian glands (causing too much evaporative loss) and/or poor mucin layer (resulting in poor adherence).

What is it about the surgery that has changed my tear film? (posted: april 2003)
Summary: The main cause is the fact that nerves are severed which may not fully grow back or which may take years, and this can cause funcational changes to how the tear-making apparatus works..