on August 16, 2026
Somewhere between one-third and half of cataract patients end up with dry eye symptoms after surgery, and a lot of them never had complaints beforehand. This BC Doctors of Optometry feature looks at why the upper eyelid — not the lower — is usually where the warning signs actually are.
It cites Fujimoto et al.'s 2022 study, where upper lid gland loss predicted new-onset post-cataract dry eye and lower lid findings didn't. Gupta and Karpecki's 2025 review backs that up: one lid doesn't tell you much about the other, so a lower-lid-only exam can miss the patients most likely to struggle after surgery. The article gets into why the upper lid is more exposed structurally, what that means for premium and Toric IOL candidates, and how ODs can use referral wait time to get ahead of it instead of just watching the clock.
Authors: BC Doctors of Optometry
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