Eye Doctors Are Begging You To Stop Using This Common Product In Your Eyes
'It's not until you have [a] problem with your eyes that you really become grateful for your vision,' said Dr. Michelle Holmes, an optometrist at Pacific Neuroscience Institute in Santa Monica, California.
There's a lot you can do to protect your eye health. You can keep up with your annual eye exams, wear sunglasses to shield your eyes from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays, and avoid wearing contacts to bed or in the pool, to name a few.
But there is one habit you should never do, even though it may seem like eye care: Don't use eye-whitening, or red-eye relieving, drops.
'My concern with those types of eye drops is that eye-whitening drops can be used by someone to mask redness, and, oftentimes, that redness is a symptom of some more serious underlying condition,' Holmes told HuffPost.
Here's why you may want to steer clear of redness relief eye drops.
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When your eye is irritated, as it may be with pink eye or certain allergies, the blood vessels located in the front of the eye will dilate and engorge. 'That's what causes the white part of the eye to look red and angry,' Holmes explained.
Those blood vessels serve an important purpose — when inflamed, they indicate something is wrong, Holmes said. This could be due to a mild problem, such as a cold or dust in the eye, or it may be a symptom of a more serious health condition like an infection, glaucoma, or a corneal abrasion.
'It's not normal to have a red, angry-looking eye,' Holmes said.
Red-eye relieving drops target these blood vessels to constrict and minimize their appearance. Temporarily, this makes the eyes white again, however, these drops could mask the problem at hand.
'It may make you think everything is OK with your eyes when really there can be something quite serious going on,' Holmes said. "It's a band-aid, not a fix," she added.
That redness can help your eye doctor detect eye diseases. With certain eye conditions, time is of the essence. Left untreated, they can worsen and lead to complications, including infections, and, in serious cases, vision loss.
Not to mention, these drops may cause a rebound effect. 'As the eye drops wear off and nutrients and oxygen start to flow back through those blood vessels, they actually will dilate and engorge more than initially,' Holmes said.
People can then get trapped in a cycle: their eyes appear red and irritated, they use redness-relieving drops that provide temporary relief, but then the redness comes back — this time, even worse — and they use the drops again. In some cases, people become dependent on red-eye relieving drops, and the underlying health issue is never addressed, Holmes said.
There are other remedies you can use instead.
Whenever a patient tells Holmes they use eye-whitening drops, she recommends they opt for lubricating artificial tears instead. Her advice: use preservative-free drops — 'they're gentler on the eyes,' she explained. These products are generally thought to be the safest type of preservative-free eye drops.
The Food and Drug Administration recently issued a warning against 26 over-the-counter eye drop products due to the risk of eye infections that may cause partial vision loss or blindness.
Finally, if your eye is red and irritated, talk to an eye care provider. Even if you give your local eye clinic a call, the front desk should be able to triage the redness — and determine if you need follow-up care or testing — and recommend safe, effective eye drops.
'Oftentimes, the cause of the redness can be determined and more effectively addressed when the reason why is known,' Holmes said.This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
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USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
A predictable day of 'horrific injuries': Doctors dread the Fourth of July
Data shows several Americans died from fireworks injuries and more than thousands were injured last year. The Fourth of July is anything but celebratory in the Emergency Room. Every year, doctors amputate fingers and hands damaged by fireworks. They try to save eyes. And sometimes they have to deliver the worst news imaginable to loved ones. That's the warning – and the cold hard truth – from doctors who are bracing for another busy Independence Day. Dr. Nicolas Lee had already amputated the hands of two boys who lost them to firework injuries the week before Fourth of July. He expects to see many more in the coming week. "These are effectively bombs people are holding in their hands," said Lee, a professor of clinical orthopedic surgery at the University of California San Francisco who directs a hand reconstruction program. "We see hands and fingers blown off, groin injuries, facial burns and damage. I've had kids blow off their eyelids so they can't close their eyes." Even though fireworks are legal in much of the nation and sold widely, they are dangerous and deserve care and respect, said Dr. Jeffrey Goodloe. He's already seen burns, lacerations and hand injuries from people holding fireworks. "They're like military battle wounds," said Goodloe, an emergency room physician in Tulsa, Oklahoma who's also vice president for communication for the American College of Emergency Physicians. "These are horrific injuries. People just don't realize that even publicly available fireworks pack enough punch to rip a finger or a hand off." Last year, 11 Americans died from fireworks injuries and more than 14,700 were treated in emergency rooms, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. In more than one-third of cases, the injuries were burns to the hands and fingers or head, face and ears. It's not just big rockets that hurt people. Last year, there were an estimated 1,700 emergency room injuries that only involved sparklers. One wrong move can change a person's life – and those people tend to be young. Almost a quarter of injuries are among people between 15- and 24-years-old and most are men. "I don't remember ever having a woman, it's always been young men," said Lee. 'We're going to see a lot of people who completely changed their lives because they made one simple, bad decision and now either they've lost a hand, they've lost their eyes, they've lost another appendage, or worse,' said Dr. Arvin Akhavan, an emergency medicine physician at the University of Washington. What are the most common firework injuries? The most common injury these doctors see is to the hands. "I've seen a number of people where the firework went off in their hand while they were holding it. Either they didn't have time to set it down or they were thinking they were going to aim it. But it blew up," said Goodloe. The hand literally blows apart, said Lee. The joints, bones, ligaments and skin are disrupted or destroyed by the blast. The most common digit to lose is the thumb. "That's 40% of your hand function," he said. "If it's really bad, the hand looks like a starfish. The fingers, the thumb, all the joints are dislocated and it just splays out," Lee said. "We try to save as many fingers as we can, we try to at least give you something to pinch with," he said. "But sometimes it requires amputation." There are also often facial burns, lacerations and injuries as people peer at fireworks. It's not uncommon for people to lose an eye. "I would love to show you actual photos of what happens, but it's too gruesome," said Chelsea Boe, a hand and microvascular surgeon at the University of Washington in Seattle. There are also groin injuries, if people are either sitting while they're lighting the device, or if they drop it and the blast radiates up towards them. Some injuries are to the solid organs in the core or to the head. "There are people who try to launch them off the top of their head or their chest," Lee said. For people setting off fireworks near shorelines or beaches, Lee has also seen injuries from sand that's cast up by the strength of the explosion. "The sand becomes thousands of little projectiles. It can get embedded in your skin, in your eyes, in your face. It's like getting a tattoo," he said. "It's hard to get out – you can't make that many micro incisions. So often you just have to leave it in." Fireworks safety tips The doctors who spend thousands of hours trying to save fingers, hands, eyes and other damage wish – fervently – that people would take a moment to think before they touch fireworks. "It's gunpowder with a fuse. They go off with unbelievable force and it goes right through the tissues," said Boe. "A lot of time, it's unsupervised kids. Or it's young men and boys who get together with their friends," she said. "They may or may not be drinking or using other substances. They may not be making the best decisions." Here's a few important tips: The damage Lee sees in the operating room is awful – and unnecessary. "It's so devastating and these injuries are entirely preventable," he said. "I hope this (article) can help at least one person from suffering this way." Can fingers be re-attached? In the movies, a person might light a firecracker and blow off a finger cleanly. They stick it in a bucket of ice, race off to the hospital, and it all gets sewn back together. Reality is not so forgiving. "In very few cases, even with a very skilled hand surgeon, are you going to be able to reimplant a finger," said Goodloe. The injuries are rarely clean and neat and the amount of damage to the digit is considerable. "The reality is that when your finger gets blown off, you've permanently lost your finger," he said. When do firework injuries occur? While many injuries occur on the actual Fourth of July, the two weeks before the holiday and the two weeks after are very busy in emergency rooms, as people start to play with fireworks they've purchased or want to set off fireworks they had leftover from the holiday. "For hand surgeons, this is our holiday in the worst possible way," said Boe. It's even worse when the Fourth of July happens near a weekend, as it does this year, because people are more likely to make a weekend of it – and to party and drink. At the University of Washington, which is the main trauma unit for the Seattle region, they saw close to 50 people who required firework injury-related surgery in the four days after the Fourth. "We do a huge amount of preparation. We have extra teams available, extra operating rooms. We cancel elective surgeries, we try to have extra anesthesia teams available," she said. "It's almost like we're triaging for a mass casualty event."
Chicago Tribune
an hour ago
- Chicago Tribune
Willie Wilson: Chicagoans cannot wait 50 years for clean water
I was astonished to learn the city has submitted a request to extend its replacement of lead service lines — 30 years beyond the 20 years the federal government has proposed. The city plans to complete 8,300 replacements annually for 50 years, wrapping up in 2076. This pace defies common sense and is unconscionable. The city must move with a sense of urgency in replacing lead pipes. We know that structures built before 1986 have service lines that allow lead to leach into the drinking water. Chicago has over 400,000 lead service lines. The majority are located in Black and brown communities. Health experts agree there is no safe level of lead exposure. Exposure to lead can cause cognitive damage, developmental delays, difficulty learning and behavioral problems in children. Could this be a factor contributing to Black and brown children being overrepresented in special education classes and the prison system? Children's exposure to small amounts of lead-tainted water causes them to appear inattentive, hyperactive and irritable. Higher levels of lead exposure may cause children to have problems with learning and reading. Last year, a study published in JAMA Pediatrics estimated 68% of children younger than 6 years old in Chicago are exposed to lead-contaminated drinking water, with 19% of affected children using unfiltered tap water as their primary drinking water source. Elected leaders should be held accountable for lead in tap water. The failure to move with urgency in replacing lead service lines will place children and adults at greater risk of drinking lead-tainted water. The Chicago Housing Authority was ordered to pay $24 million in a lead paint poisoning case that affected two young children. According to the Illinois Department of Public Health in 2023, about 3,200 children tested positive for elevated blood lead levels. Preventing residents from consuming toxic water will reduce health costs and a potential public health crisis. Why would government leaders knowingly allow residents to be poisoned by contaminated water? This was the case in the city of Flint, Michigan, where the drinking water became contaminated with lead because of a change in the water source. WBEZ-FM 91.5 reports that the federal rule requires Chicago to replace nearly 20,000 lead pipes a year beginning in 2027 — more than double the speed of the city's current plan. Among the cities with the highest number of lead service lines, only Chicago has yet to adopt the federal deadline. Clean water is essential to life; without it, we cannot survive. The water we drink helps regulate body temperature, aids in digestion, carries nutrients to cells, flushes out waste, enhances our skin and much more. It is important that residents have confidence in water from the tap. A 2023 Gallup poll found 56% of Americans overall said they worry 'a great deal' about pollution of drinking water. However, that sentiment was expressed by 76% of Black adults and 70% of Hispanic adults, compared with less than half (48%) of white adults. The bottled water industry in 2016 surpassed soft drinks to become the most consumed beverage in the country. 'Bottled water in the U.S. has been found to be no safer than tap water on average, contains higher levels of microplastics, is less strictly regulated and consumers are much less likely to find out if contamination does occur,' a 2023 research paper published in WIREs Water noted. Moreover, distrust in the quality of public tap water is driving the growth of bottled water. The following are suggestions to ensure clean and safe drinking water for all residents: Elected leaders should consider children and the most vulnerable when urging a delay to remove lead service lines from homes. Long-term exposure to lead can contribute to an increased risk of kidney, testicular and potentially other cancers. Also, lead exposure can lead to high blood pressure and reproductive problems. Clean water is a universal human right. In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly formally recognized the right to safe and clean drinking water as a right inextricably linked to the full enjoyment of life and all human rights. The U.N. statement should be shared with elected leaders in Illinois. We cannot wait another 50 years to remove all lead service lines in Chicago. Every day we delay, the potential grows for more children to be poisoned by lead from their drinking water. I write this commentary to make those comfortable with allowing residents to drink lead-tainted water uncomfortable.
an hour ago
RFK Jr. wants everyone to use wearables. What are the benefits, risks?
Last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the agency was launching a campaign to encourage all Americans to use wearables to track health metrics. Wearables come in the form of watches, bands, rings, patches and clothes that can be used for a variety of reasons including monitoring glucose levels, measuring activity levels, track heart health and observe sleeping patterns. "It's a way … people can take control over their own heath. They can take responsibility," Kennedy said during a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Health. "They can see, as you know, what food is doing to their glucose levels, their heart rates and a number of other metrics as they eat it. and they can begin to make good judgments about their diet, about their physical activity, about the way that they live their lives." He went on, "We think that wearables are a key to the MAHA agenda -- Making America Healthy Again. My vision is that every American is wearing a wearable within four years." Digital medicine experts told ABC News that wearables do have benefits and can be used to motivate someone to increase physical activity, which could reduce the risk of poor health outcomes. However, they said not everybody needs to have a wearable and there are some potential risks including data breaches. Nabil Alshurafa, an associate professor in the department of preventive medicine and the department of electrical and computer engineering at Northwestern University in Illinois, said wearables were born out of the quantified self movement. This is a movement that endorses using technology to track and analyze personal data for learning and improvement. "Just the way when we're driving a vehicle, we see whether we're low on gas, and then we pass by the gas station and repump," Alshurafa told ABC News. "So, the idea was sort of can I see when I'm active? Not active? Can I see when I have poor health habits and then adjust accordingly. Did I have good quality asleep last night? If not, let me try to improve that." He said there are benefits to wearables, mostly in the form of motivation to change behaviors. A July 2022 study found wearables can empower patients and help with diagnosing conditions, changing behaviors and self-monitoring. Additionally, a July 2019 study from the University of Florida in Gainesville found wearable devices can motivate and accelerate physical activity, although it did not find consistent improvement in health outcomes. Dr. David McManus, chair and professor of medicine at UMass Chan Medical School and a digital medicine expert, said an example would be if someone wants to walk 10,000 steps a day and they wear an activity monitor that tells them they only walked 5,000 steps on a particular day. This might motivate that person to walk further to achieve their goal. In turn, evidence shows people who are more physically active have fewer rates of heart attacks and are less likely to develop high blood pressure or obesity. "The benefit would be if a person actually used that information to change their behavior," he told ABC News. "That would be the clearest use case of a person using a wearable to learn. … I won't say there's convincing concrete evidence that a wearable will prevent heart attacks -- I would be uncomfortable saying that -- but I do think it's reasonable on the basis of preliminary studies and observational studies, there is some potential benefit for certain types of people from wearing devices to get people motivated to change." Alshurafa said clinicians can also receive more granular data about behaviors such as how much energy patients are expending and how many calories they are burning. It's unclear if Kennedy's connections have played a role in his endorsements of wearables. U.S. surgeon general nominee Casey Means co-founded Levels, an app that allows people to track their food, along with biometric data like sleep and glucose monitoring, to see how their diet is impacting their health. Additionally, her brother, Calley Means -- an adviser to Kennedy -- has a company that could benefit from more wearables in the world. His company, TruMed, allows people to use funds from Health Savings Accounts towards health products, such as fitness tracker watches. There are also drawbacks. McManus said there is not a high level of evidence that shows wearables have benefits over the long term. "One thing I've learned as a physician and researcher is it's really hard to get people to change their habits," he said. "So it's not so much that the sensors don't work, and it's not so much that they're inaccurate -- because there is plenty of data that shows that wearable devices can present really good, high-quality data -- but the missing link in the chain of wearables to good health is getting people to actually get off their couch and go be more active when they have a wearable them that they've been on the couch." There are also privacy concerns because of the substantial amounts of data that wearables generate, as well as the potential for misuse. McManus said if a database gets hacked, the data could be compromised and potentially used by a bad actor to steal additional personal information. "The more data that's generated, the greater the risk," he said. Authors of a JAMA Viewpoint article in 2019 said another risk is that data could be used against policyholders with higher premiums or to deny insurance. Because wearables collect health information such as weight, calorie intake and blood pressure, insurance companies could use the data to increase costs, the authors said. Alshurafa said not everyone needs to wear a wearable and it depends on the patient's condition and what they hope to achieve. "We feel once their health improves, we then wean them off it," he said. "So, this notion that someone has to wear a wearable constantly -- well, I mean once the problem is solved, then hopefully there's no need for it."
