Christ, a rather uplifting case of dry eye? (6)

I believe the answer is:

xeroma

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'christ a rather uplifting case' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I can't tell whether this works.

'dry eye?' is the wordplay.
'dry' becomes 'xero' (I've seen this before).
'eye?' becomes 'ma' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'xero'+'ma'='XEROMA'

'of' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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