Have your eyes been feeling irritated lately? It’s not just summer allergies that could be to blame.
Dr. Jon Jimenez, an optometrist at Henry Ford OptimEyes, said he’s seeing an increase in patients suffering symptoms triggered by smoke from the Canadian wildfires.
“Definitely over the past couple of weeks, it’s been a lot more prevalent, patients coming in complaining of things like eye irritation, tearing, redness, that kind of just started out of nowhere, and they haven’t always been able to pinpoint exactly why it may be occurring,” said Jimenez.
Wildfire smoke can trigger a wide range of health problems, even when the fires are burning far away.
“A lot of those microparticles coming in from the wildfires can travel across many miles, even hundreds of miles, and it’s been reported,” explained Jimenez. “Those particles can get into your eye, get into your tear film, irritate your eyes if you wear contact lenses, and can make those feel uncomfortable.”
The symptoms can be similar to other eye conditions.
“Most commonly from the wildfires, people are probably going to experience dry eye-type symptoms or even allergic-type symptoms. So these often include things like redness, pain, foreign body sensation, feeling like you want to rub the eyes, itching, and tearing,” said Jimenez. “People who already have issues with dryness, like chronically, or allergic symptoms, if you’re already dealing with seasonal allergies in the spring or the summertime, those can definitely be exacerbated even more so by what’s going on in the environment right now.”
If your eyes are bothering you, Jimenez has this advice.
“There’s a few different at-home things that you can try before you decide you might need to seek care. Simple things like lubricating drops. Over-the-counter, preservative-free artificial tears can be used a few times a day to see if that gives you some temporary relief. Cool compresses, something like a cool towel to soothe your eyes. Using your apps or your news apps, things like that, to check the air quality and see how it is that day, to kind of decide, plan for the day if you’re going to have more of an outdoor day or an indoor day to help minimize your symptoms as well,” said Jimenez.
If those steps don’t help, seek care from a professional.
“If you feel like your symptoms are severe, if they’re lasting longer, they’re not getting better, or they’re even getting worse, then you should definitely seek care with an optometrist or ophthalmologist to see if maybe you need a prescription, or if there could be even something else going on on top of this,” said Jimenez.