The One Thing Eye Doctors Say You Should Never, Ever Do
Patient getting an eye exam.
It's probably been a while since you thought about your eye health, and that needs to change.
"Eyes are not only 'windows to the soul,' but also to the body," Dr. Michelle Holmes, MD optometrist at Pacific Neuroscience Institute in Santa Monica, California, tells Parade. "Eyecare providers are the only clinicians who can see inside of the body without invasive procedures or surgeries."
What's more, a comprehensive eye exam is important not only in caring for your eyes and vision but also in your overall health, she points out: Eye exams can identify early signs of otherwise asymptomatic diseases like diabetes, hypertension and other cardiovascular problems, autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and thyroid dysfunction and even brain tumors.
Your usual trip to the eye doctor is typically related to either an annual checkup for your eyeglasses or contact lens prescription or if you have an eye injury or problem. As it turns out, you may be inadvertently causing the latter. Find out the one thing eye doctors say you should never, ever, do—along with the mistake a lot of people make often that needs to change STAT.
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The One Thing Eye Doctors Say You Should Never, Ever Do
Eye doctors agree that there is absolutely one thing you should never, ever do regarding your eye health and vision: Never look directly at the sun!
"One of the worst things patients can do to their eyes is look directly at the sun," Dr. Holmes says. "Even briefly sungazing can cause damage to the 'seeing' photoreceptor cells of the eyes, which results in solar maculopathy."
Solar maculopathy, also called solar retinopathy, solar retinitis, eclipse retinopathy, photic retinopathy or foveomacular retinitis, is a type of injury to the retinal tissue that can leave a central blind spot in someone's vision. In addition to a blind spot in the central area of vision, other symptoms of maculopathy can include:
Light sensitivity
Blurriness or a lack of sharpness in vision
Difficulty seeing in darker settings
Difficulty seeing or distinguishing certain colors
Visual distortion
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Solar maculopathy sees an uptick after eclipses, when more people—even adults who know better—look directly at the sun (even after being warned not to do so).
According to Dr. Holmes, in addition to looking directly at the sun, you can also get similar retinal damage from looking directly at a laser light source.
Solar maculopathy is more common in children (whose eyes haven't yet developed the ability to block UVB light rays), but adults can get it too—and it is seriously damaging.
"Unfortunately, solar maculopathy is permanent and irreversible," Dr. Holmes says. "This is why it’s important to use solar-safe glasses when watching an eclipse."
In terms of everyday eye protection from the sun outside of eclipse time, eye protection is still super important.
"Sun damage to the eyes can cause several serious conditions, which may be irreversible or require surgery to fix," she notes. "These include wrinkles and crow's feet around the corners of the eyes, pinguecula or pterygium (commonly referred to as 'Surfer's eye'), UV keratitis (often called 'snow blindness') and cataract development."
The good news? It's really easy and pretty cheap to protect yourself. Dr. Holmes recommends rocking a hat or sunglasses help to block harmful rays from causing damage to both the front and back of the eye and to your skin—and she says that even inexpensive sunglasses usually provide adequate protection from both UVA and UVB rays.
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The Most Common Mistakes People Make Regarding Eye Health
Staring directly at the sun may be the absolute worst thing you can do for your vision, but it's not the only mistake people often make regarding their eye health. In terms of the most common error adults make in terms of ophthalmological health, it's actually sleeping in or overwearing contact lenses.
Dr. Vincente Diaz, MD, Yale Medicine ophthalmologist with specialized training in ocular immunology and infectious diseases, says sleeping in or otherwise overwearing contact lenses is a big no-no, but a lot of people do it anyway.
"This can cause some infections such as acanthamoeba to grow, causing blinding infections," Dr. Diaz warns. "In these circumstances, even if we are able prevent total vision loss, there can be irreversible scarring."
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Read that again: Sleeping in your contact lenses can literally lead you to go blind. And even if you don't get an infection that's super serious, it's still bad news for your eyes to get your forty winks with your contacts in.
"It is important to remember the front part of the eye does not have blood vessels," Dr. Diaz explains. "The front of the eye gets oxygen from ambient air and nutrients from the tear film. Contact lenses block both of these and can cause severe inflammation even without an infection."
Thankfully, this is a relatively easy behavior to change, making these problems preventable if you're even the slightest bit responsible.
"Even when these lenses are marketed as 'monthly,' they should be taken out regularly and cleaned every night," Dr. Diaz advises. If monthly lenses and the cleaning necessary for them are too much for you, fret not.
"Some people find it easier to use daily lenses and not have to worry about whether they are properly cleaned," Dr. Diaz says. Of course, that means you have to toss your dailies at the end of the night—do not re-wear them or keep them in longer than recommended by your doctor!
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