You’re off to the beach or the pool for a day in the sun. You’ve applied sunscreen to every centimeter of every sunbather, so you’re ready for whatever the rays bring.
Except you’re not, really.
Don’t forget your sunglasses because eyes can sunburn just as easily as your skin ““ and just as painfully.
Wait? My eye can get a sunburn??
Eye sunburn, or photokeratitis, got a bump in the public consciousness a couple years back when TV reporter Anderson Cooper said he’d been temporarily blinded after spending a long day on the water reporting for 60 Minutes. (Cooper regained his sight after 36 hours, he said.)
Summer activities where sun reflects off water into unprotected eyes are a common culprit, said Dr. K. Norman Sawyer, optometrist at Visionary Eye Care in Fort Mitchell, Ky. And as with sunburned skin, usually you won’t recognize it until later, when you’re out of the sun.
“If you have sun and water, or snow, most of time you’re going to have a little squint to hold down the glare,” Sawyer said.
“Typically you’re going to have a band pattern across the front of the cornea where you can tell the patient was squinting. It’ll be the middle third of the cornea that will be rough and irritated, like chapped hands.”
Assessing the damage
Cooper’s temporary blindness is an uncommonly severe reaction. Typically, symptoms of eye sunburn include pain, sensitivity to light and/or a sensation of grittiness.
More acute damage, Sawyer said, includes pinguecula, a bumpy thickening of the conjunctiva on the white part of the eye. There’s also pterygium, also called surfer’s eye, a non-cancerous growth on the white of the eye.
Treatment options
In most cases, eye sunburn generally clears relatively quickly, Sawyer said. “The cornea, the front of the eye, is really awesome. It will fix itself within 24 to 48 hours,” he said.
Supportive therapy like over-the-counter lubricating eye drops, or artificial tears, usually provides sufficient relief, Sawyer said. In more severe cases, a combination antibiotic/steroid eye drop may be prescribed. “That’ll help calm it down,” he said.
Of course, the best approach is prevention, and that means sunglasses or goggles. Polarized is best, and wraparound designs provide maximum coverage, but at the minimum look for ultraviolet (UV) ray protection.
“People wonder if it’s OK to buy a cheap pair of sunglasses because they lose them,” Sawyer said. “As long as you have that little UV protection sticker, you’re cool.”
