Dr. Cha:
You wanna start? I wanna start, forgot did last time.
Dr. King:
I, I had this really catchy opening and it’s gone.
Dr. Cha:
Oh, you had something?
Dr. King:
Are we filming already?
Hey, welcome back to Days of Our Eyes. I’m Dr. King.
Dr. Cha:
I’m Dr. Cha.
Dr. King:
Today we’re gonna talk about eye rubbing. We all do it. Quit it, we all do it. We’re not supposed to. The question always comes up, is it gonna hurt me? Is it gonna affect my vision? Stay tuned and we’ll answer those questions.
Dr. King:
Why do you rub your eyes?
Dr. Cha:
Oh, I think it’s a natural response. And when we have something in our eyes, we tend to blink or even close your eyes, maybe look around, try to rub it out or not rub it out. We’re try to kind of get it outta our, our eyes. Even we try to like, pull on our eyelids, but rubbing specifically is more associated to like an allergic reaction. But when we have some kind of allergen or something that irritates us, our body naturally has a response. An allergic response is a form of inflammation, which, when you hear inflammation, we usually think, oh, that’s bad. But it’s actually our body’s natural way of defending itself. When it goes uncontrolled, that’s when it becomes more of a detriment sometimes than it is a benefit. And so, yeah, why do I rub my eyes? I have ATP some kind of like allergic and like baseline inflammation for myself. So I tend to do a lot of that.
Dr. King:
Yes, he does.
Dr. Cha:
They try to keep me on the straight and narrow, but I like wandering.
Dr. King:
Bottom line is something’s irritating the eye and you want to get it out of there so you start rubbing cuz it feels good. However, it’s not a good idea. There’s a lot of of myths around it. Some are myths and there there’s some, there’s some legitimate concerns. You’re gonna alter the structure of the eye, allow germs to enter the eye and you’re gonna release some histamine. And histamine is not our friend. Eye rubbing actually has been linked to a particular condition. I was just, I was just in a lecture this last weekend. There’s a disease called Keratoconus. It’s a disease of the cornea, the windshield of the eye.The cornea can’t repair itself and it starts to bulge forward. It starts to misshape. Most folks that develop Keratoconus actually have a history of eye rubbing, but particularly the knuckle rubbing. So we do know there is a link between some corneal diseases that can actually cause loss of vision and knuckle rubbing. So even though it sounds like an old wive’s tale, really, you don’t wanna go rubbing them.
Dr. Cha:
That’s what I’m scared of.
Dr. King:
Yeah. Well, you’re on your way.
Dr. Cha:
I know it’s bad.
Dr. King:
Mr. Astigmatism over here. Yeah. And how could, how can you stop rubbing? If you think about what Dr. Cha said, you know, one of the most common things ATP it’s some sort of allergy. Well, allergy is a histamine reaction. And the histamine comes out, I think of it as gum-balls falling out of a gum gum-ball machine. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s, that’s how my mind works. When the histamine gets on the surface of the eye, it causes itching, burning, swelling, watering. Okay. But if you rub, it feels good for a minute, but you release more histamine. So you get into this vicious cycle.
Dr. Cha:
I was kind of imagining when you’re, when you burst the gum-ball machine, you take one step and you start slipping and then start slipping more. Yep. And more fall out. It’s a cascading effect, like eating something spicy water initially it makes it feel better, but you’re, you’re washing all the oils in the mouth that help it, you know, subside the spiciness. So think of it like, you know, you are, you are already, you are already in it. So do your best. Do yourself a favor and not make it worse by rubbing.
Dr. King:
One of the things you can do is a cold, compress something cold. It kind of freezes things up. It reduces some of that heat, some of that fire- inflammation as we like to say. So that’ll help with getting in front of the physical sensation. Simple artificial tears or an antihistamine, eyedrops or, or mass cell stabilizer, eyedrops. They’re a lot of these that are over the counter these days. Not your Visine, but your Pataday, your Lastacaft. This stuff that actually helps keep the histamine from being released in the first place and they rinse away the allergen, the thing that got in there that started the irritation to begin with.
Dr. Cha:
You talked about cold and artificial tears. Try to mix both of them together. A refrigerated artificial tear can do wonders to kind of have both actions. Something cool in your eye and something to kind of wash out the allergens that you got going on there.
Dr. King:
Yeah.
Dr. Cha:
I think key is prevention. You know, when people do have allergies, you know, they, it’s a chronic thing, so they kind of know themselves. They even check the, you know, the weather app for the allergy index. A lot of the times pollen index. If you’re able to, you know, for one, not touch your eyes, you know so it doesn’t get as bad. It’s almost like…
Dr. King:
Don’t bust the gum-ball machine open.
Dr. Cha:
Yeah. And when we talked about like those over-the-counter allergy drops, like Pataday, Lastacraft, Zaditor, you could also put those in the refrigerator, but putting them in early, you know, when you have a little tingle put them in. Right. Not when it’s already oh crap it already started ruining my eyes and then we put it in and you’re just playing from behind at that point.
Dr. King:
Yeah. You’re, you’re behind the eight ball already. If you know you’re gonna be in a situation that makes your eyes, that makes you wanna rub your eyes, try and avoid it. Or do something preventative. Put a tear in, put one of those allergy eyedrops in before I have to do it before I mow the grass because then I’m not going to be so itchy afterwards. I can keep my fingers out of my eyes. Remember, not only are you setting off those mass cells, but also how clean are these things. You’re not, you don’t know what you’ve been touching and all of a sudden you’re doing this or doing this. Any virus, any bacteria that’s on your hands has now been introduced to the ocular surface. Not a great idea, especially if you’re out in public. That’s a good way to get an eye infection. Just a general pink eye. That’s how we usually get it, is we touch and touch. So the less eye rubbing the better. Otherwise you’re gonna have to do what we’re gonna do to him in the office to put mittens on his hands.
Dr. Cha:
So I guess for the myth buster, it’s more so confirmed, right? Rubbing your eyes can have lasting likely permanent, it could progress you having a serious eye condition. Right.
Dr. King:
So we’re gonna take that myth to fact. Yeah.
Dr. Cha:
Okay. So close? Oh, okay.
Dr. King:
Close it! Dang it! Well, if you like our Days of Our Eyes content, please remember to like the video, subscribe. Leave us some feedback in the comments section below. Questions, comments, you know about our hair and what not.
Dr. King:
Don’t comment about my hair
Dr. Cha:
And look at Our Days Of Our Eyes content. We have stuff about dry eye, lazy eye, migraines.
Dr. King:
Keep coming back cuz we’ll be here.