Wow, is this year going by in a flash! How are we already almost half way into 2023?! Spring is in full gear and Summer is just right around the corner! And do you know what that means? The sun is coming out and Houston is about to get hot! In the good way though, or bad way if you’re like me who loves the cold weather! But as we are approaching the warmer months, let’s talk about how important it is to protect our eyes from that sunlight!
Now I’m sure we all had someone in our lives lather on some sunscreen on our skin before we even took a step outside in those hot summer days! Now it may have felt gross, but boy was that important! UV protection has been a top priority in all of our lives because we were always afraid of that dreaded sunburn, and even more scary skin cancer. Now what if I told you that your eyes can also get sunburn and cancer too? Ouch! Now some of you may have already known about that, and some of you might have just learned something new today! Before we get into how to protect ourselves from these things, let’s talk about how it can actually affect our eyes if we get too much UV exposure in them!
Not only are our eyelids and lashes important fashion points on our face, they serve a very important function of protecting our eyes from things getting into them and also importantly blocking out some sunlight. The same way that scary freckles and moles can pop up on our skin from too much UV exposure, our eyelids can also develop these things that could turn into cancer if not caught or treated early! When looking at yourself in the mirror, take a quick look at your eyelids and eyelashes and make sure there aren’t any color changes or lumps or bumps appearing out of nowhere! If you do happen to notice any of those things, come visit your favorite eye doctors and have them examined!
Moving onto the eye itself, have you ever noticed that some people have brown or yellow lumps on the whites of their eyes? Same as the skin again, some people are born with a little extra pigment that makes each of us unique, but newly formed yellow bumps (called pingueculas) or new brown spots (melanocytes) can be a concern if you weren’t born with them! Now it isn’t a major concern if they have been there for a while, but getting a yearly eye check is very important to make sure they aren’t growing or spreading!
And lastly our vision itself; remember when we were little and adults told us never to look directly at the sun? It sounds like common sense now, but we all know kids’ curiosities always get the best over them. The reason it’s important to never look directly at bright sources of light is because it can actually damage the back of our eyes where we process all of our vision! Now, you might say it’s easy to not stare directly at the sun as adults, but even prolonged exposure can affect other parts and damage our peripheral vision!
So now that I scared you into the scary things that can happen, what can we do to protect ourselves? The short answer, never go outside (haha! But that’s still not good for us!). The better answer, polarized sunglasses! Polarized sunglasses are the best answer because the lenses themselves will eliminate a lot of the harmful UV radiation in the light and keep our eyes protected the best! For you contact lens wearers, you are the lucky ones that can purchase sunglasses that already have the polarizing effects and are able to see right away with your contact lenses on your eyes! But glasses wearers, do not fret! Did you all know that you can actually get sunglasses with your prescription built into them?! And they don’t even have to be sunglasses frames either; bring in your old frames and we can swap out those clear old lenses for some new polarized lenses with your clearest prescription! That is the beauty of how advanced our world is today!
Now that we know the amazing fact that everyone in the world can wear sunglasses, everytime we are out and about during the day we should all have our sunglasses on to protect our only two eyes! And yes, that even means when we are driving even when the sun isn’t shining directly in the way we are driving. Sun coming from any direction and through any of our car windshields are harmful!
Thank you for reading, and if you have any questions or want to come in to try on some frames to protect your eyes, come visit us at Cypress Family Eyecare!
All photos are taken by us at Cypress Family Eyecare and infographic from the American Academy of Ophthalmology!
