No tear ducts

msrenee22297711 over a year ago

I am a 41 year old female who was born without tear ducts. My eyes constantly water and it is such a hassle. My eyes are always red and everyone thinks I am sad or crying all the time. I once had surgery when I was about 6 or 7 years old and they inserted what they called Jones Tubes into my eye sockets. Immediately after the surgery, the left tube came out and the right tube remained in my eye until about age 21. After so much hassle I never did anything to replace them. Besides, with the tubes my eyes were constantly filled with mucus and it was more a hassle than it was worth because my eyes still watered constantly.

Being that medical technology has advanced since the 70's, I was wondering if there was a procedure that could be done to stop me from living looking through water and having forever red watery eyes.

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Linley102271 over a year ago

Hi Msrenee 222,
wondering if you got an answer to your query- I am 60 years old New Zealander and was born without tear ducts-I thought I was the only one, have always dreamed of a fix.

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Guest over a year ago

Hi there, I have been looking everywhere to find out what the condition is called, if anything. I am 21 and also have no tear ducts. If I cry, no tears. Also, I commonly wake up with my eye lids stuck together, especially if I have contacts in.

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Guest over a year ago

Hi there, I have been looking everywhere to find out what the condition is called, if anything. I am 21 and also have no tear ducts. If I cry, no tears. Also, I commonly wake up with my eye lids stuck together, especially if I have contacts in. I think this is going to post twice, but if anyone can tell me.

Thanks so much ahead of time.

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Guest over a year ago

hi..my daughter who is 11 years old was born with this condition it is called epiphora! hth

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EdN119256 over a year ago

I'am a 24 year old Durtch man who also have the same problems: no tear-duct, many tears. Does somebody know if there is an way to solve this problem. I know of the Jones-tubes but i hear that is more a problem than a solution because every time the tubes moves you have to do a surgery and this can happen 8 times a year. Is there another solution?

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Guest over a year ago

I'm a 23 year old male and was born with this same condition. I have 1 out of the 4 drainage ducts. When I was 19 I went to a doctor and found the only treatment for it was to have the "Jones Tubes" inserted in my sinuses. I opted against it because it's easier to wipe my eye then worry about a piece of glass in my face. But a piece of advice for anyone with this condition, when I was younger the doctors said that my tear ducts developed at the same time as my kidneys and he gave me an ultra sound to check if I had under developed kidneys. My kidneys were fine, but if you have this problem I'd have them checked out.

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Guest over a year ago

Hi, I am a fourteen year old girl, and I am so sick of this problem. My eyes constantly water, and its quite bothersome to have everyone asking why I'm crying. Ughhh. Now ive had roughly 14 surgerys since age 1, and nothings working. All I want is something to permanently fix it, as I know you all do too. Thanks, and replies will be mucho appreciated!

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Guest over a year ago

Hi i am a 17 year old boy and i was born without out tear ducts when i was around 6 they put plastic tubes in my eyes and bye the time i was 7 years old they irritated my eyes so much i pulled them out being an irrational child and truthfully since then i haven't had a problem since then.

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Guest over a year ago

To the one who cries with no tears, I have to same problem. I was in a bad car accident about 8 years ago. One day during my hospital stay, I started crying because I was in so much pain and very frustrated. I realized that I was not making any tears. I have not made a tear since 2003, before the accident. I have been told by eye doctors that there is no cure, but there is a chance that some unknown day I might make tears again. My eyes are always dry and I am constantly applying eye drops. The best ones I have found are Systane lubricant eye drops. I keep a bottle in my purse, in my pocket, at my bedside table, in my car.... pretty much everywhere! I have searched the internet and have never found anyone with this same problem! Anyone else have a similar condition? or any advice?!?!

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beentheredonethat over a year ago

the only things they can do if you have no ducts are first make one and insert tubes to see if it can work on its own and possibly remove a little pice of bone and then if that dont work is put in artifical tear ducts those are the only opions.i am female 20 years old and born without upper tearduct ive had two surgeries for the doctors to try to make my tear ducts on my upper eylid to work by first making the holes for the ducts then placeing tubes in my eyes that got removed 3 months later then that didnt work so they tried again but this time they took out a small pice of bone out of my nose and putting the tubes back in but this didnt work so tommorrow i have another surgery to get artifical tear ducts placed in my ducts my doctor said this was the last option. i really hope it works. i hate havin this problem i always got made fun of cuz it looked like i was cryin. but the longer u wait the harder it will be to get them working. i hope this helps. and i get my paid for by insurence but if u dont i wouldnt let them do all that other suff i would go right for artifical tear ducts cuz belive me them tubes dont help at all. and i wish i would have just got them to begin with now i have a scar on the sides of my nose and all

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Seandon229216 over a year ago

I am 50 now and have had this same problem all my life. Always seems worse in cold weather or if the wind blows on my eyes. I went to the Dr and they referred me to an eye consultant who confirmed that I have no tear ducts and that's the reason for the constant flow of water. He said he could put glass tubes in but I feel that as I have had this problem all my life, I would rather just wipe the tears away than have glass tubes stuck to my face.

What I would ask is if anyone knows of anyway to stop the tears even for a little while? I have job interviews to go to in the next few weeks and am concerned at how it looks as if I've been crying. I wear glasses sometimes as I feel the tears are less obvious and it looks more like you are wiping your eyes through use of the glasses than anything else.

In this day and age, you would think that Medicine would come up with some solution as there appear to be quite a few people who have the same problem.

Failing everything else, I think we should start a club - Tears against the World! and campaign for a better treatment that children could have to prevent having this problem all their lives!

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Melissa over a year ago

I was in a bad car accident almost two years ago. Due to the nerve damage i can't produce tears either. I was wondering if your problem was due to nerve damage as well. And if so does it ever get better?

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Laura over a year ago

When I was born, I was legally blind in my left eye and my mom was told I had reversed tear ducts. They corrected my bad eye by patching my good eye, but I have never in my life (24 years) shed an external tear. When I cry, my eyes barely water at all, and my face swells up. They told my mom the only way to correct would be surgery. I can only find information for blocked tear ducts but never my actual condition. My eyes have enough moisture I guess, never seem dry or too irritated except on occasion. I would like to find another person like me. Though I've always wanted to shed a tear and know the feeling, I refuse to have the surgery, afraid of outcome and tears not being as I fantasize and not being able to reverse the surgery.

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Jbuck95 over a year ago

I didn't like the tubes either, I was bit in the face by a dog when I was five years old and it tore out my right tear duct and about 2 or 3 years later, I pulled the tube out of my nostril on accident by blowing my nose. Ever since then my eyes constantly leak. Especially when I have a cold :/

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