Category: Eye health

Our eyes, like our skin, can get burnt by the sun.

When your eyes get sunburned, it’s called ‘photokeratitis.’ It happens when the thin surface layer of the clear front of your eye (the ‘cornea’) is damaged by UV light from the sun.

UV damage to the eyes is cumulative. Just as many sunburns can lead to skin cancer, the more UV your eyes are exposed to over the years, the greater your risk of serious eye conditions, including:

Cancer

Chronic UV exposure to the eyes is associated with melanoma in the eye, skin cancers of the eyelid and squamous cell carcinoma of the eye surface. Treatment sometimes requires removal of the eye.

Macular Degeneration

Prolonged exposure to UV rays can cause sight-threatening damage to the central part of the back of the eye (macula). This results in an irreversible loss of central vision. Macular degeneration is a common age-related eye condition. Once the damage is done, it can’t be reversed, but sunglasses offer protection from UV rays and prevention of retinal damage caused by repeat exposure.

Pterygium

Chronic UV exposure to unprotected eyes can cause pterygium or ‘surfer’s eye.’ It’s when tissue grows on the cornea and can only be treated with surgery.

Cataracts

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 16 million people suffer blindness to cataracts each year, and up to 20 per cent of cataracts around the world are caused by overexposure to UV radiation.

That means that 320,000 people (20% of 16 million) could have kept their sight if only they had taken the simple precautions to avoid overexposure to UV rays.

If you have further questions about photokeratitis, speak with your local Eyecare Plus optometrist.

To slow the spread of COVID-19 prevention is key.

The most common-sense COVID-19 precautions are the best: keep a safe distance from others, wash your hands regularly, wear a firm-fitting mask and get vaccinated.

Aside from these basics here are a few extra COVID precautions to take in relation to your eyes:

1. Wear your glasses

Glasses and sunglasses can partially shield the eyes from respiratory droplets and small airborne particles containing the virus. Glasses alone don’t provide complete security – the virus can reach your eyes through the top, bottom, and sides of your glasses. That is why frontline health workers and ICU staff wear goggles and face shields and why we are all encouraged to wear masks, more specifically P2/ N95 masks.

2. Clean glasses regularly

Clean your glasses regularly but be sure not to put anti-bacterial hand sanitizer on the lens surfaces (it might smear and leave streaks). Also: wash your glasses cleaning cloth once a week.

3. Safe contact lens wear

You can continue to wear contact lenses but wash your hands thoroughly. There is no evidence that wearing contact lenses increases your risk of COVID-19. Wash your hands with soap and water before inserting and after removing your contact lenses.

4. If symptomatic, take a break from contacts

If you are ill, you should stop wearing your contacts temporarily and switch to glasses. Once you are well again, you can use your contact lenses again, but be sure to use new contact lenses and a new lens case.

 5. Do not rub your eyes

In general, it is a good idea to avoid rubbing your eyes, always. If you can’t stop rubbing your eyes, however, use a tissue instead of your fingers or wash your hands with soap and water before and after you touch your eyes.

 6. Avoid mask-associated dry eye

An ill-fitting surgical mask can cause your breath to be channeled up out of the top of the mask and over the surface of the eyes, drying them out. Be sure your mask fits well, limit your time in air-conditioned environments and step outside for a break periodically. Ideally, for greater protection, you should be wearing P2/ N95 masks.

As our understanding of COVID-19 continues to evolve and change, Eyecare Plus optometrists and staff place a priority on staying educated and informed to ensure the health of our patients.

Eyecare Plus optometrists and staff strictly adhere to all government health and safety advice to reduce the spread of COVID-19. This includes rigorous dedication to hand-hygiene and the use of PPE, such as surgical masks, gloves, eye protection and breath shields for equipment.

Eyecare Plus optometry practices carry out enhanced cleaning and disinfection of the patient environment on a regular basis.

If you have further questions, speak with your local Eyecare Plus optometrist or visit the Australian Government Department of Health’s website for official medical advice and information on treatments and vaccines.

For information about COVID-19 and vaccines call the National Coronavirus Helpline on 1800 020 080. This line operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Eye injuries can happen anytime, anywhere whether at work or while cleaning at home or playing sports. In fact, 90% of eye injuries are preventable with the use of appropriate safety eyewear.

Here are seven (7) practical things everyone can do to avoid an eye injury.

1. Get your eyes checked

People with uncorrected or reduced vision are more likely to have an eye injury. Proper vision correction is the first line of defense. If you already have glasses, make sure your prescription is correct and up-to-date.

2. Ordinary eye wear isn’t enough

It is a misconception that your regular glasses or sunglasses provide eye protection from common eye injuries. They don’t. Always buy – and wear – eye protection that complies with Standards Australia (AS/NZS 1337.1:2010).

3. Sunglasses are great protection against the sun

Eye protection from the sun’s UV rays is essential, especially in Australia. Long hours spent working on the garden outdoors has been linked to cataracts, macular degeneration and pterygium.

Remember to slip, slop, slap, and slide on a pair of UV protection sunglasses.

4. At home: identify hazards and eliminate them

There are many simple precautions that you can take to prevent most eye injuries at home.

• • Fix or avoid unsteady surfaces, sharp edges or places poorly-lit
  • Keep sharp tools and kitchen utensils away from small children
  • Keep chemicals, fertilisers, pesticides, and pool cleaning products locked away.

5. At work: ask for eye protection and wear it

Proper eye protection on the job prevents thousands of eye injuries each year, and employers in Australia are legally obligated to provide it. Ask your boss for proper eye protection glasses to wear on the job. Ensure your eye safety glasses fit properly to provide maximum protection, ensure they are cleaned and maintained and make sure you wear them.

6. Protective eyewear playing sport

Sports Medicine Australia strongly recommends that athletes wear appropriate protective eyewear to prevent eye injuries. They advise using eye protectors that comply with Standards Australia designation for sports eye guards (AS/NZS 4066-1992).

7. Show and tell young athletes to protect their eyes

Lead by example. Show young kids who are playing sport that eye protection is important by wearing safety eyewear yourself when you play sport. Tell them that they won’t be able to perform at their best unless they can see. An eye injury can wipe out years of training… in the blink of an eye.

One of the most unusual consequences of the Covid-19 lockdowns of the past two years was a decrease in work-related eye injuries and an increase in DIY, at-home injuries.

In fact, 21% of Australians have acquired an eye injury while working on DIY projects at home during the pandemic, probably because only 12% of Australians wear eye protection for these projects.

Eye injuries can happen anytime, anywhere. At work or while cleaning at home or playing sports. The fact is, 90% of eye injuries are preventable with the use of appropriate safety eyewear.

At Home

There are many eye injury hazards working around the home, particularly in the garden. Consider all the small particles that can enter your eye in the garden, not to mention chemical burns that could splash into your eye while working in the garage or on the car.

It is important to wear protective eyewear, not simply standard eyewear. Eye injuries can be worse while wearing regular spectacles because the lens can shatter, and glass fragments could potentially penetrate the eye.

When at home, we often don’t think to protect our eyes when pulling weeds or cutting off a branch. But consider the implications of a stray branch poking into your eye. The damage could cause permanent vision damage and a high level of personal trauma.

People over the age of 40, in particular, are at increased risk of eye injuries because they usually have presbyopia or other age-related vision problems.

Every single day, throughout the world, people suffer from eye injuries simply because they aren’t wearing eye safety glasses, or they aren’t wearing the appropriate type.

At Work

It can take a single moment for a workplace injury to occur and, equally, a single moment is all it takes to prevent harm by putting on protective eyewear.

In Australia, 60% of all eye injuries occur in the workplace. Advances in eye protection design as well as improved work health and safety regulations have helped reduce work-related eye injuries. But, with more than 50,000 Australian workers admitted to hospital in the space of two years, it is obvious that we have a long way to go.

In Sport

A fast bowler in cricket can deliver the ball at 41.6 metres per second. It is hard to overestimate the ocular trauma that could occur to the human eye if hit with a cricket ball. Cricket balls, however, aren’t the only hazard.

Playing sport, many eye injuries come from pokes and jabs by fingers and elbows, particularly in games where players are in close contact with each other. Think rugby scrums, mauls for example, they have an extremely high rate of eye injury.

The numbers really hit home when we think about the impact on our young athletes. Because they haven’t learnt to refine their skills or master the ability to play safely, young children are more prone to greater incidents of  eye trauma than older players.

One doctor from the Princess Margaret Hospital for Children in Perth reported that while severe eye injuries from sporting activities account for only 10% of severe ocular trauma in children, 27% of those injuries resulted in permanent visual disability.

It is surprising that protective eyewear is mandatory in some professional sports such as cricket for batsmen or close in fielders, but not for kids’ sports.

Contact lenses

Although contact lenses don’t provide protection from eye injuries, if you wear them under your eye safety equipment, they will improve your vision and may actually decrease your risk of eye injury.

In workplace situations, the safe use of contact lenses should be determined on a case-by-case basis. If, for example, you are working in a dusty environment or working with gases or harmful liquids, the wearing of contact lenses will probably need to be reconsidered.

The best move is to check with your employer’s safety policy. If you have further questions, speak with your Eyecare Plus optometrist about your individual situation.

Treating Eye Injury

If your eye is injured at home, at a sporting event or at work, immediately seek medical help, especially if you have pain in the eye, blurred vision, or loss of vision. Often, injuries that seem trivial can lead to serious eye damage.

If you have further questions about the use of protective eyewear at home, work or when playing sport, contact your local Eyecare Plus optometrist.

As beautiful as spring is, nearly 20 per cent of people in Australians will suffer from eye allergies – allergic conjunctivitis – eye redness, swelling, conjunctivitis, eye itchiness and a burning feeling in the eye or the eyes can become watery.

Allergic conjunctivitis is not contagious so cannot be passed on from person to person.

Symptoms of allergic conjunctivitis are usually mild to moderate.

How can allergic conjunctivitis be treated?

When your eyes are irritated, they can respond to simple treatments to effectively reduce your suffering. These include:

1. Cold Compress

Bath your eyes with cold water, ice packs and cold water compresses.

2. Home Adjustments

Sweep and clean your house with a vacuum cleaner that has a high-efficiency particulate air filter that can trap 99.97% of microscopic particles in the air.

3. Avoid Peak Pollen Hours

The peak pollen times are in the morning from around 8 to 10am and in the afternoon from 5 to 7pm. If you can, stay inside during these hours and avoid areas with a lot of grass, flowers, or trees.

4. Wear Sunglasses and a Mask

If you have to commute during peak pollen times, wear a mask and sunglasses.

5. Use Eye Drops for Allergies

Lubricating eye drops can be used to reduce itching and swelling and to clean the allergens out of the tear film of the eyes.

6. Keep Windows Closed

On high pollen days stay at home and keep the windows closed to keep out the pollen.

7. Eat Healthy

Eat more fruit and leafy green vegetables as well as fish such as salmon, which is high in omega-3 fatty acids, which can improve your allergy resistance.

8. Exercise

150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise each week will help improve your hay fever symptoms and reduce your stress levels.

9. Avoid alcohol and smoking

Alcohol and smoking make allergy symptoms worse. Wine and beer have a high level of histamines and smoking causes a release of histamines. Prevent an allergic reaction by avoiding alcohol and smoking.

10. Wash Hair and Clothes

To reduce allergic symptoms, take off your shoes before you enter the house to keep the allergens outside. Wash your clothes and hair, particularly on high pollen days, as pollen sticks to your hair then rubs off on your pillow.

11. See Your Optometrist

Many people suffer from undiagnosed eye allergies. It is important to see your optometrist before your mild symptoms get worse and cause serious damage to your eye.

If you have symptoms of allergic conjunctivitis book an appointment with your local Eyecare Plus optometrist to discuss treatment options.

Spring is arguably our most loved season. The days are warmer, flowers are blooming, and the bees are busy pollinating. But, for many, spring can be miserable.

For nearly 20 per cent of people in Australia springtime is hay fever (allergic rhinitis) season – sneezing combined with a blocked, itchy, watery or runny nose.

When exposed to allergens in spring such as pollens from flowers, grasses and weeds, allergic rhinitis causes inflammation of the sinuses with the vast majority of people also suffering from seasonal allergic conjunctivitis.

What are the symptoms of allergic conjunctivitis?

In spring, people who have allergic conjunctivitis can suffer from eye redness, swelling, conjunctivitis, eye itchiness and a burning feeling in the eye or the eyes can become watery.

Allergic conjunctivitis is not contagious so cannot be passed on from person to person.

What are the types of allergic conjunctivitis?

There are two main types of allergic conjunctivitis – Seasonal allergic conjunctivitis (SAC) and perennial allergic conjunctivitis (PAC). These are usually grouped together and affect 15 to 20% of the global population.

SAC is more common and, as the name suggests, occurs seasonally in spring and summer when pollen levels are highest. PAC symptoms occur any time of the year as a result of exposure to non-seasonal allergens such as cigarette smoke and dust mites.

What can you do about itchy eyes?

When your eyes feel itchy from hay fever your first instinct is to rub them. First off, don’t itch your eyes with your fingers.

Rubbing your eyes is one of the single worst things you can do to your eyes.

Our hands, as we know from the plethora of communication about cross infection over the past year and a half, are harbingers of disease.

As public health messages highlight, our hands contain millions of bacteria and viruses that can cause respiratory infections from the sniffles to the flu and, as we now know, COVID-19.

Proper hand washing will help prevent the spread of these viruses from a person to themselves and to others.

It is hard to not rub your eyes when they are itchy, but that immediate relief can be detrimental down the track. We feel a momentary relief when we rub our eyes because we stimulate our lacrimal glands which produce tears that lubricate and soothe the eyes.

If we continuously rub our eyes or rub them too hard, we can damage the cornea, the clear front window of the eye. We can also break the tiny blood vessels around the eyes causing dark circles.

The more pressure we place on our eyes with our fingers, the more likely our eyes will get red and puffy.

“Worse still: too much irritation of the cornea can cause or perpetuate harmful conditions; one such condition is the little-known keratoconus,” warns optometrist, Dr. Luke Arundel, Chief Clinical Officer, Optometry Australia.

What is Keratoconus?

Keratoconus affects 1 in 2,000 people. It is a “progressive, degenerative eye disease that thins the cornea.

“The cornea can then start to bulge or protrude outward in a cone-like shape. This conical shape distorts how the cornea refracts light, which can result in blurred vision,” says Dr. Arundel.

Keratoconus symptoms include blurred or cloudy vision, light sensitivity, halos around lights and the need to change your spectacle prescription frequently.

There is no cure for keratoconus, however, depending on the severity of the condition, specially-made contact lenses and spectacles can be used to help improve vision.

If you suffer from eye allergies, it is going to be hard to not rub your eyes when they are itchy but it important for the long term health of your eyes to not rub them.

When you have irritated eyes, they can respond to simple eye treatments to effectively reduce your suffering, including cold compress to bathe your eyes or lubricating eye drops which can be used to reduce itching and swelling and to clean the allergens out of the tear film of the eyes.

If problems persist, contact your local Eyecare Plus optometrist to discuss treatment options.

Men are increasing less likely to attend to their eye health than women, according to the latest Medicare Report on the use of optometry services by age from 2013 to 2020.

In 2020, 42.27% of men used an optometry service compared to 57.73% of women. This is a figure that has been steadily dropping each year for the past ten.

It shows that men are continuing to neglect their eye health to the detriment of their overall wellbeing. They blame work or their busy schedule for not looking after their eye health.

As men’s eyes age, it is important that they are encouraged to look after them.

Eye Health Tips

As we get older, our eyes, like the rest of our body, ages, but there are things we can do to maintain good vision and healthy eyes.

1. Ageing Eye

We need to be mindful of the implications of our ageing eye.

When we move into our 40s, we have problems focusing on things up close and develop presbyopia. If dimming or clouding of vision occurs cataracts may be an issue. These are things your optometrist can help you with.

2. Food for Eye Health

Aside from wearing sunglasses, or safety glasses, to protect your eyes, men can look after their eye health by eating healthy – fish, nuts, wholegrain, leafy green vegetables, berries, and citrus fruits – foods pumped with vitamins A and C and omega-3 fatty acids are great foods for eyesight improvement.

3. Work the 20-20-20 Rule for Eyes

If you are spending hours on end looking at the computer screen, give your eyes a break by applying the 20-20-20 rule, simply look 20 feet in the distance every 20 minutes for 20 seconds.

4. Do Not Smoke

We know from the general health messages that smoking is bad for us in general. We know it causes heart disease and lung cancer. What you may not know is that studies highlight that smoking is a major contributing factor to the early onset of age-related macular degeneration.

Smoking also ages us quickly particularly around the eyes. Nicotine causes the blood vessels in the upper layer of your skin to narrow, resulting in a disrupted flow of blood, increasing wrinkles and dark circles around the eyes.

5. Stop Eye Rubbing

When our eyes itch our natural tendency is to rub our eyes, but rubbing your eyes is bad for your eyesight.

We would not rub our eyes up against a keyboard but that is basically what we are doing when we touch our eyes without washing our hands. Our unwashed hands carry hundreds of thousands of tiny bacteria.

When your eyes get itchy or you have something stuck in them, clean your hands for at least 20 seconds, using soap and clean water and dry them with a clean towel, then, wash your eyes out with sterile saline or a lubricant eye drop.

Artificial tears can help stop the itch that makes you want to rub your eyes and will keep them hydrated.

Encourage men in your life to book a regular eye examination with their local Eyecare Plus optometrist.

Men tend to adopt a “she’ll be right” attitude when It comes to their eye health, says Optometry Australia’s Chief Clinical Officer, Luke Arundel.

“They soldier on or tough it out when it comes to their health in general and their eye health is no different.”

According to the latest Medicare Report on the use of optometry services by age from 2013 to 2020, men are increasing less likely to attend to their eye health than women.

Last year 42.27% of men used an optometry service compared to 57.73% of women, a figure which has been dropping each year for the past ten.

It is a significant stat which highlights that men are continuing to neglect the health of their eyes to the detriment of their overall wellbeing.

Today, with more knowledge and awareness at our fingertips, men are still baulking at seeing doctors, following through on their appointments, and blaming work or their busy schedule for not looking after their eye health.

Men’s health advocates agree that men and their families need to have meaningful discussions about the factors that keep them healthy in body and mind.

A man’s eye health, in particular, his ageing eye, is an important part of that conversation.

Prevent Vision Loss

As men grow older, they need to be more diligent and take greater care of their eye health to avoid vision loss from preventable eye conditions such as macular degeneration and glaucoma.

“Vision loss prevents healthy and independent ageing,” says Luke Arundel.

“When you consider that 90% of vision loss is preventable or treatable, having regular eye examinations by your optometrist should be part of everyone’s commitment to living their best life.

“It is simple, easy and painless to get an eye test, one that will help preserve good vision for life.”

Vision loss impacts our overall health, placing a person at a greater risk of developing depression and anxiety.

If a person’s vision is not managed correctly by having regular eye examinations, it can also negatively impact their sense of self-worth and social connectedness, particularly if they lose their driver’s license.

Eye Safety

Eye safety and eye injury are significant areas for men to be more mindful of.

Men who work in trades and as labourers are less willing to wear safety glasses or protective eyewear when working, and yet they are at the greatest risk of a foreign object damaging their eyesight.

In fact, men accounted for 83% of cases in which optometrists had to remove a foreign body embedded in the eye. And it is not just at work that men need to wear safety glasses to protect their eyes from flying shards of metal or timber, consider too work done in the backyard or garage.

It is important that men (of any age) to wear safety eyewear when gardening, doing home handyman work, mowing, basically anything where a small particle, flying object, or piece of dust could fly into the eye.

UV Protection for Eyes

Men’s eyes need to be protected when outside.

Sun protection is a message we constantly hear, however, even though men know the risk of sun exposure in Australia, 31 per cent do not own UV protective sunglasses and 32 per cent believe sunglasses are unnecessary.

Living in Australia it is critical for all of us to understand the consequences of sun damage to the eye.

Prolonged exposure to direct UV light from the sun and reflective light can significantly damage the eyes and can result in serious eye conditions including cataracts, macular degeneration, pterygium or photokeratitis.

When outside – in summer and winter (in fact all year round) – your eyes should be protected from harmful UV rays by wearing sunglasses with UV protection.

Clouds will not protect your eyes from these harmful rays, nor will shade as your eyes can be damaged by indirect light, from the side or reflected off those bright surfaces you find yourself squinting at, or looking away from, such as the footpath, snow, sand, or water.

Encourage all men in your life to book a regular eye examination with their local Eyecare Plus optometrist. It is the easiest way to combat preventable vision loss which could impact a man’s overall sense of wellbeing.