Skin Science Society

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I Thought My Dry Eyes And Eczema Were Unrelated. I Was Wrong.

I was treating two separate conditions with two separate products for three years. My dermatologist knew about one. My optician knew about the other. Neither of them ever mentioned they might be related.

By Victoria M - California, USA

January 6, 2026

Every morning started the same way.

Before I opened my eyes fully, I already knew what was waiting.

My eyes would feel dry and tired most mornings.

Nothing dramatic, just that uncomfortable feeling that never quite went away.

I kept a small bottle of eye drops nearby.

Reached for them at some point most days, almost without thinking.

Then I would check my arms.

New scratch marks most mornings. Sometimes blood on the sheets from scratching in my sleep without knowing it.

Cream on. Long sleeves. Drops in. Start the day.

I had been doing this for almost three years. And I had genuinely accepted it as just... my life.

What I did not know was that both problems had the same cause. And that one thing — taken daily — was quietly addressing both of them at once for thousands of people like me.

Two Conditions I Never
Thought To Connect

My optician had mentioned once that my eyes looked dry. Nothing serious, she said, just something to manage with drops when needed.

My dermatologist managed the eczema on my arms and hands with steroid cream.

Both conditions were real, both were managed, and both were treated as entirely separate things by entirely separate people.

I kept a small bottle of eye drops in my bag and one on my desk. Used them when my eyes felt tired or irritated, if I am honest. I never thought much of it. I assumed it was screens, or dry air, or just how my eyes were.

The eczema was on my arms and hands, itchy at night, cracked skin in winter, flares that came and went without warning.

I had learned to dress around it.

Long sleeves in summer.

Planning outfits the night before to make sure nothing showed too much.

"I saw both specialists regularly. Not once did either ask about the other condition. Not once did either suggest the two might be connected. It genuinely never occurred to me to ask."

Everything I Tried.
Why Nothing Lasted.

I want to be clear about how much I had actually tried before this.

I tried a few different over-the-counter drops over the months. Some felt better than others.

None of them changed anything underneath, my eyes just went back to feeling the same way as soon as the drops wore off.

The steroid cream for my eczema had started working less well after about a year. I needed to apply more of it to get the same result.

My dermatologist moved me to a stronger potency. The skin on my forearms was starting to look visibly thinner, I noticed it when I held my arm up to the light. I kept using it because there was nothing else.

I tried evening primrose oil capsules for four months after reading about them in an eczema group.

They helped slightly. Not enough to actually matter. I tried fish oil. Same result, marginal, inconsistent, not something I could point to and say "this is working."

I changed my washing powder. My shower gel. My pillowcase fabric. My diet, slightly. Each change reduced something by a fraction. The fundamental picture never changed.

My partner came home one evening and found me sitting quietly at the kitchen table, not doing anything, just sitting.

"What's wrong?"

"I've tried everything I can think of," I told him. "And I feel like I'm going backwards."

He didn't have an answer. There wasn't one. Not yet.

What Maya Said
That Changed Everything

Six weeks later I was at a work dinner. Maya, someone I had worked with two years before, was there.

I remembered her mentioning about her eczema, and dry eyes. She had described both the same way I would have: matter-of-factly, like permanent facts of life you just manage.

But sitting across from her that evening, something was immediately different.

Her arms were completely clear. She was wearing a sleeveless top. And she sat through the entire dinner without touching her eyes once.

I waited until we were getting our coats.

"Maya. Your skin looks completely different. What happened?"

"I found out why nothing was working," she said.

"The creams, the drops, all of them were treating symptoms. They were never going to reach the actual cause."

She told me the eczema and the eye dryness she had always dealt with, two things she had always treated as separate, exactly like I did, turned out to share one single root cause.

The same deficiency in the body was driving both. She had not known.

Her doctors had not told her. She had found it herself through research.

"What is it?" I asked.

"What's the cause?"

"It starts with specific fatty acids your body might not be producing efficiently enough," she said.

"GLA is the main one. But there is more to it, it

is easier to understand when you read it. I will

send you the links."

She sent me the research links that night. I stayed

up until 1am reading.

The Real Reason Nothing Worked,
And Why It Is Not Your Fault

Here is what I found. And once I understood it, everything made sense.

Your skin needs two specific fatty acids — GLA and SDA — to stay healthy, hold itself together, and protect you from the inside.

Most people produce enough. But for many people with eczema, something interferes with that process.

For some it is gut health, the gut plays a key role in how the body absorbs and converts dietary fats into what the skin actually needs. For others it is genetic, a variation in how a specific enzyme functions. For some it is a combination of both. The exact reason is different for everyone.

But the result is often the same: the body cannot produce or convert enough GLA and SDA — no matter how well you eat, no matter how many healthy foods you eat.

This is not your fault. And it explains why nothing you have put on your skin has ever fully fixed it.

Here is the simple version:

The part that changed everything for me: it does not matter how well you eat. If your body cannot make GLA efficiently, eating more healthy fats does not help. Our Eczema type body needs GLA already made, ready to absorb. That is the difference between every supplement I had tried and the one that actually worked.

What GLA Does

Your skin has a natural protective layer — thin but incredibly important. It is made up of skin cells bonded together by a network of fats and lipids. GLA is one of the key fats that holds that network together. When GLA levels are low, the layer becomes porous. It cannot hold moisture in. It cannot keep irritants out. That is where the dryness, the cracking, the itch, and the flares come from, your skin's own barrier failing to do what it is designed to do.

Your eyes work on a similar system. Tiny glands just inside your eyelids produce a thin oil layer that sits on top of your tears and stops them evaporating too quickly.

GLA is what those glands need to make that oil. When GLA is low, the oil layer becomes thin. Drops replace the water underneath — but without the oil layer holding it in place, the moisture evaporates within minutes. That is why drops wear off so quickly. They were never addressing the right layer.

One missing ingredient.
Two completely different symptoms.

But GLA Is Only Half Of It

GLA fixes the structural gaps. But when those gaps keep appearing, your body also builds up chronic inflammation — that is what keeps the itch coming back even on days when your skin looks almost okay.

There is a second fatty acid called SDA that handles that side. Think of it this way: GLA closes the gaps. SDA quiets the signal that keeps firing through them. One rebuilds. The other calms. Without both working together, you are only solving half the problem — which is exactly why nothing you tried before was ever quite enough.

Evening primrose oil has GLA — but no SDA.

Fish oil has omega-3 — but no GLA at all.

What I was taking

Evening primrose — GLA only, no SDA.

Fish oil — omega-3 only, no GLA.

Each one covered half. Neither covered both.

What the body actually needs

GLA and SDA together, delivered in a form the body can use directly, without needing to convert them first.

I had tried both, at different times. I had never tried both together. And both together, from the right source, that is what was missing.

What I Did Next

So when Maya told me she had found a source that contained both, already formed, ready to absorb, I understood immediately why that was different from everything else I had tried.

It was not a better version of the same thing. It was the missing combination entirely.

Black currant seed oil is the only plant source that naturally contains both GLA and SDA together.

That is what Maya had found, not just another supplement with one ingredient, but the combination the research actually points to.

"It is not just the GLA and SDA," she had told me. "The formula has other compounds around them, for repair, for inflammation, for recovery. It works as a complete system."

She had already been on it for four months when I saw her at that dinner.

Her optician had commented on the improvement in her tear film at her last appointment.

Her dermatologist had asked what she had changed.

I ordered it that night.

The company offered a 90-day guarantee use the entire bottle, all of it, and if nothing changes, you get your money back.

That felt like the only reasonable thing: give it the full timeline the research suggested, and judge it then.

What Actually Happened —
Week By Week

I gave myself a rule: three months, no judgment before then. I kept using the drops and cream exactly as before. I was not going to let hope skew the results.

Days 1–6

Nothing noticeable. Expected. I kept everything the same.

Day 7

I slept until 5.30am without waking to scratch. It had not happened in months. I noted it in my phone as a small thing and tried not to read too much into it.

Day 11

A Zoom call came through at short notice. I turned the camera on without checking my eyes first or reaching for drops. I realised it afterward — the first time I had done that in well over a year.

Week 3

The nighttime itching had reduced significantly. The skin on my forearms looked visibly calmer. I wore a short-sleeved top to a friend's birthday for the first time in two years. Nobody commented on my arms. That was the entire point.

Week 5

I counted my eye drop usage that week. Twice. I had been using them four to six times daily for eighteen months.

Month 3

My optician examined my eyes at a scheduled appointment. She looked at her notes, looked again. "Whatever you've changed," she said, "it's showing up in the tear film. I want you to keep doing it." She wrote it down in my notes.

The Moment That
Stayed With Me

I sat in the car after that appointment and didn't move for a few minutes.

Three years. Two specialists. Not one conversation between them. Not one question from either about the other condition.

A supplement had done in three months what three years of medical appointments had not: it had connected the two things.

Now, five months in, the steroid cream is at the back of the cabinet.

I use it occasionally.

Eye drops are in one bag, not every bag. My arms have not had a meaningful flare in two months.

My partner noticed before I said anything.

"You seem different," he said one evening.

He was right. When you stop managing two conditions every waking hour, you get that headspace back.

You stop making every small decision through a filter of "but what about my skin, but what about my eyes." That was the part that surprised me most, not just the physical change, but the quiet return of ordinary, unfiltered life.

Since So Many Of You
Have Been Asking...

I have had hundreds of messages since sharing this story asking what supplement I actually took.

I have been hesitant to post about it directly because I genuinely do not want this to read like an advertisement, it is not. This is just what happened to me.

One thing worth knowing before I share it: Earth on Skin has sold out six times this year. I only mention it because if you are reading this and thinking about it, that is worth knowing before you close the tab.

You can also try other Black Currant Seed Oil supplement from Amazon, I have never tried them myself how ever.

But people keep asking, and I know what it is like to spend years looking for something that actually makes sense. So: it is called the Calm Skin Capsule by Earth on Skin.

It contains GLA and SDA from black currant seed oil, delivered in a form the body can absorb directly.

Alongside those: anthocyanins for visible repair, vitamin C for collagen, vitamin E for protection, B5 for skin regeneration, B6 for the anti-inflammatory response, B1 for the nerve pathways involved in the itch cycle.

Eight ingredients. When you see them listed on the product page, every one of them will make sense from what you just read.

They offer a 90-day guarantee. Even if you use the entire bottle.

I thought that was worth mentioning because it is the reason I tried it when I was sceptical, there was genuinely nothing to lose.

I am not suggesting it will work for everyone.

I can only tell you what happened for me.

If you have been dealing with both conditions and nothing has fully worked, the GLA and SDA connection is worth understanding.

The research is real.

The mechanism is documented. I just wish someone had told me sooner.

The Supplement I Mentioned

Earth on Skin — Calm Skin Capsule. GLA, SDA, anthocyanins, vitamins C, E, B5, B6 and B1. 8 active ingredients. Formulated for the barrier deficiency behind both eczema and dry eyes. 90-day money-back guarantee — even if the bottle is empty.

Here is the link to the supplement I take -

https://earthonskin.com/products/black-currant-seed-dry-itchy-skin

* This is a personal story. Individual experiences may vary. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before beginning any supplement. Research referenced: PMC11854708 (2025), King's College London BJD (1984), Review of Optometry (260076).

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