Eli5. How come it is bad to rub your eyes?
In: 33
If you feel the urge to run your eyes, it is likely because they are dry and irritated.
Touching irritated tissue just makes the irritation worse, because you are very likely to spread the cause of the irritation around (foreign body, dirt, etc)
Also your hands are very dirty and spreading bacteria on your eyes would not help.
So we have this pandemic that we’re currently living through. One of things we’ve been told for the last 2 years is to avoid touching our faces, including rubbing our eyes. The reason for this is that viruses can enter your body through your eyes.
short term you are probably rubbing your eyes because of inflammation and rubbing them causes more inflammation so a lot of times its a never ending cycle
Long term if you do it so much you can irreversibly damage your cornea and meibomian glands
its also just poor hygiene in general to touch your face
– optometrist
I’ve never heard this before. Is this an American thing?
If you have gritty eyes and your hands are passably clean it’s probably fine. I’ve never heard of anyone losing an eye from rubbing it.
Edit: Apparently the [Vision Eye Institute](https://visioneyeinstitute.com.au/eyematters/dangers-rubbing-eyes/) disagrees with me. I’ve been rubbing my eyes when I feel like it all my life and I’ve never experienced any of the downsides they’re claiming. You be the judge whether their advice is good or not.
It’s a good thing to tell kids because eye rubbing is a huge risk factor for developing keratoconus, a corneal degenerative condition.
I can confirm ( and was included in part of a study) that rubbing your eyes can cause serious damage to your cornea. I got Keratoconus ( where your cornea forms a football / come shape) from rubbing my eye too hard and required a full thickness cornea transplant.
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