How to protect your eyes in summer

We get excited when the first glimpse of summer season appears with its warm sunny weather and long days. Unfortunately, this season is also an obstacle course for your precious eyes with off-road trips or garden work, chemicals in pools and the sun that burns delicate tissues. You can still have fun, but you may need to take some steps to protect your eyes. We wanted to share some important information that will hopefully help you this summer.

Wear Sun Protection

You would be amazed how many people go to an open air all-day concert event without wearing a cap and sunglasses. They are fine at first, they go home, go to sleep and then wake up in an hour in excruciating pain. The sun, of course, shoots out rays of different lengths. The most damaging are the ultraviolet rays, which are classified as UVA and UVB. Most good sunglasses protect against UVB and some also protect against UVA (which is usually stated on them). With this in mind, it is ideal to wear sunglasses with 100% UVA and UVB protection. Too much ultraviolet can accelerate the formation of cataracts. There are studies that show that people who stayed in the sun tended to get cataracts 8 to 10 years before a carefully selected group that was mostly in the shade or indoors. The hat-sunglasses combo should also be worn at the beach, amusement parks, bike rides, boating, or anyplace where there is prolonged sun exposure. And don’t forget the little ones – they need the same.

Wear Serious Eye Protection While Doing Home Projects

Activities like weed whacking or lawn mowing have to be done in a careful way wearing eye protection and with no one nearby (especially kids), as a flying rock could hit you easily but more likely it may go sideways and hit someone lower to the ground nearby. Professional quality goggles from a home store should be used as eye protection here and not reading glasses or sunglasses. Unfortunately a number of people ending up visiting emergency services with corneal lacerations from garden work and in most cases surgery has to be done to fix these. Make sure you wear eye protection while chopping wood, hammering nails, dealing with sawdust or anything that can fly around.

Protecting Eyes During Sports and Events

Baseballs, golf balls, squash and handballs can seriously injury your eyes. When playing most ball sports, eye protection is strongly recommended. Some say that it (eye protection) is uncomfortable while playing sports, however it is more uncomfortable to deal with an injured eye if that happens. Hockey goalies used to consider their facemasks being a hindrance, but it’s a necessary item for them now. And of course paintball is a whole other story. Commercial places providing this activity make you wear eye protection, but some people run out in the backyard and start shooting without it.Other threats to your precious eyes are dart guns or archery. If there is a possibility that your kids may get into older kids’ toys, make sure the toys are locked away and older kids take precautions and/or eye protection using those toys.

What’s the best thing you can do for your eyes in summer? Protect them with sunglasses and use your common sense. If you have any concerns, do give our friendly team a call on 0800 AKL EYES