If eyes have ocular immune privilege, how come so many environmental allergies manifest themselves as itchy/watery/swollen eyes?
In: Biology
The inside of the eyes have no immune system. The eye sockets themselves do. Allergies causes inflammation of the tear ducts and tissues around the eye as your body tries to flush the allergen out.
Your eyes essentially have their own immune system, separated from your normal one (ocular immune system). Immune system privilege means that they are excluded from normal immune response, not that they have no immune system in place.
Environmental allergies are generally speaking not evolutionarily advantageous. General irritations are. Since the risk of losing an eye is a “big deal” the supporting systems are tuned to go all in on flushing irritants out.
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