For years, Jennifer Aniston kept a bottle of eye drops within arm’s reach, convinced that constantly irritated eyes were just something she had to live with. “If I was reading a script, my eyes would start itching. It was so painful and irritating,” she told Glamour.
The realization that her discomfort actually had a name, dry eye syndrome, or dry eye disease, is the kind of aha moment many women in their 40s and 50s will recognize. We get used to small, nagging symptoms. We blame screens, travel, dry air and age, then quietly accept them until someone tells us we don’t have to. Aniston is one of several stars, alongside Mandy Moore, Erin Andrews, Julie Bowen and Ken Jeong, who have shared how they finally got answers.
What Is Dry Eye Syndrome and What Causes It
Moore assumed her symptoms came from where she lived. “I assumed I was dehydrated. I live in a desert,” she told Parade. “And while both of these things are true, I also got a diagnosis a year ago of dry eye disease, which I’d never heard of. I just figured the discomfort I had with dry eyes was something that I was going have to live with.”
Andrews learned at an eye exam that excessive tear evaporation was behind her symptoms, according to Flow Space. She had been blaming screen time, nonstop travel and exhaustion.
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Bowen’s doctor pointed to inflammation after she noticed trouble while filming Hysteria! “You can’t just wet the top of your eyeball and treat the inflammation, which is what I had been trying to do [with eyedrops],” she told Fox News Digital.
Jeong tied his symptoms to decades of exposure. He told Yahoo Life he had worn contact lenses for over 35 years, pulled on-call overnight hospital shifts as a medical professional and now spends his days on dusty sound stages and reading teleprompters in dry Los Angeles weather.
Dry Eye Symptoms People Often Mistake for Something Else
Jeong told People that patients often confuse the condition with allergies, and the clues can be subtle. He described “achiness, grittiness in the eyes and just itchy burn,” and added, “It’s happening in both eyes. It’s not just localized. It’s more bilateral.”
Moore noticed hers were interfering with work. “I’d be in the middle of a scene and feel my eyes cloud over because they were so dry and I was immediately taken out of the moment. I could only think about my eyes and how uncomfortable I was. It was a vicious cycle,” she said.
Andrews kept rubbing her eyes and ruining her mascara. “I thought it was just being tired or the elements, but I was wrong,” she said.
Aniston, as she described to Glamour, had come to believe the irritation was simply a feature of her face she had to accept.
“I always thought, ‘Oh, it must be the environment, or I must have allergies, or someone said maybe because you have wide eyes you’re more sensitive,’” she said, adding, “I’d literally be going to a premiere and my eyes would be burning and I’d have to give myself a dose of eyedrops before I went down the red carpet. But I just thought that was what my eyes were and I had to live with it.”
How Celebrities Are Treating Dry Eye Syndrome
Each person found a different path forward.
- Moore started OptiLight, a light-based in-office treatment given as a series of four sessions. “It just felt like warm, pulses of light on my skin. I could have a treatment and then go back to my day,” she said.
- Andrews was prescribed Miebo, a drop designed to reduce tear evaporation. “Honestly, instantly when I took it, I felt such a difference,” she said. “It was really nice to not have to worry about squinting, rubbing my eyes or wondering if something was wrong.”
- Bowen began using the anti-inflammatory drop Xiidra twice a day for about nine months. “I’m able to not feel my eyeballs,” she said, recalling that one of her doctors told her, “You’re not supposed to feel your eyeballs.”
- Jeong was also prescribed Xiidra after being diagnosed with inflammation, and partnered with Novartis to encourage annual eye exams.
- Aniston worked with her doctor to wean off the drops she had been reaching for constantly. She said what followed was “this wonderful relief.”
Why Seeing an Eye Doctor Matters
All five pointed back to the same first step. “At the end of the day, it does take talking to an eye doctor to help determine if you have dry eye disease or not,” Jeong told People.
Andrews offered similar guidance. “I would suggest going to your eye doctor and asking questions. Talk about your symptoms and see what’s best for you. It’s important to listen to them,” she said.
For Aniston, the lesson was that eye care deserves a spot on the preventive checklist alongside everything else women track in midlife. “As I get older, if I hadn’t taken care of this, it just would have gotten worse,” she said. “And as my doctor said, eventually [your eyes] do start to give out on you if you’re not taking care of them.”