Let’s face it: It can greatly impact our daily lives when something’s even just a little bit off with our eyes. Our eyes are seriously powerful seeing machines, but they’re also sensitive. Sometimes, they can react to the environment or other factors in inconvenient ways, resulting in different eye problems and symptoms.
For information on eye infections or specific eye disorders and diseases, mosey on over to those respective articles listed below. This article will cover some of the more common, everyday eye and vision problems—from symptoms like redness, dryness, and itchiness to those pesky eye floaters and everything in between.
Remember: It’s always best to visit an eye doctor if anything seems amiss with your eyes. It is better to have them properly assess your eye health with a comprehensive eye exam than try to self-diagnose.
Common Eye Problems
Let’s start by looking at some of the most common eye problems that people face.
Dry Eye Syndrome
Although your eyes moisten themselves by blinking and also through tears, sometimes these lubricating mechanisms don’t work as well as they should, and your eyes become dry. Dry eyes can be treated with artificial tears and other methods, including medications and medical procedures.
Eye Strain
Just like you might strain a muscle in your arm from carrying too much weight, you can strain your eyes from overuse! Strained eyes might feel sore, and you might experience greater difficulty focusing or seeing clearly. Any activity that heavily involves your eyes can cause eye strain, such as reading or driving for long periods.
As we spend more and more time each day in front of screens, digital eye strain (AKA computer vision syndrome) has also become a much more prominent eye problem than ever before.
Eye Floaters
You may have noticed stringy, spotty shapes in your field of vision that move with your eyes when you try to focus on them. These are called eye floaters, and they’re perfectly normal. They appear because the fluid (or “vitreous”) inside your eye sometimes clumps together and casts shadows on your retina.
Floaters are no cause for concern unless you’re seeing way more of them than usual or they are accompanied by flashes of light. In that case, call your eye doctor.
Read more: When Should I Worry About Eye Floaters?
Eye Allergies
Having allergies can bring some of the most annoying eye problems together: itchiness, tears, redness, tenderness, and more. Both indoor and outdoor allergens can trigger these eye allergies. Thankfully, allergy sufferers have options: taking medications, avoiding known irritants, and pursuing other treatments if these first-step remedies don’t work.
Additionally, if you wear contact lenses, switching from weekly or monthly lenses to daily disposable contacts can be enough to alleviate some allergy symptoms!
Injuries Can Cause Eye Problems Too
Another common culprit behind eye and vision problems is minor injury. With our eyes being as delicate and sensitive as they are, it’s no surprise that even the slightest issue can harm them or disrupt our vision. Below are some common injuries that can impact our eyes.
Foreign Object in the Eye
Have you ever gotten something in your eye? Many of us know with firsthand experience that even the tiniest speck of dirt or an eyelash can lead to irritation, redness, or blurry vision.
Thankfully, this is often easy to resolve by following steps to flush out the eye safely. But keep in mind that issues outside of everyday dust-in-the-eye scenarios are best left to the experts. Debris in the eye can lead to (sometimes vision-threatening) injuries.
Scratched Cornea
The clinical term for a scratch on your cornea is “corneal abrasion.” Corneal abrasions happen when anything scrapes up against the surface of your cornea too hard. Even minor irritants such as makeup brushes, grains of sand, and fingernails can cause these scratches if they contact the cornea with enough force.
Minor corneal abrasions can heal in a matter of days, but it is best to see an eye doctor for treatment, as severe ones can scar the eye and cause vision problems.
Sun Damage
Most of us have heard at some point in our lives that we should not look directly at the sun. And for good reason—doing so can damage the eyes and have lasting effects on your vision, such as causing cataracts, macular degeneration, pinguecula, or pterygium.
But did you know that even when you’re not looking directly at the sun, excessive exposure to its UV rays can harm your eyes? Wearing UV-blocking sunglasses is a great way to protect yourself from sun-related eye problems.
Common Eye Symptoms
Aside from the injury and eye conditions mentioned above, we can still experience bothersome eye symptoms for a multitude of reasons. Often, these symptoms are temporary, but if you find yourself troubled with persistent eye problems, it’s important to see your eye doctor.
Remember that eye issues like the ones listed below are symptoms that have a root cause. Your eye doctor has the expertise to pinpoint the underlying problem and recommend the best solution for relief.
Red, Watery, or Itchy Eyes
There’s a whole host of possible explanations if your eyes are red, watery, or itchy. While sometimes an environmental factor may be to blame (such as being in a smoky room), other times, your doctor will need to identify an underlying condition.
Allergies, dry eyes, eye strain, infection, dirty contact lenses—the potential causes of eye symptoms like these are seemingly endless. Watch for other symptoms, such as pain, tenderness, and discharge, and discuss with your doctor.
Twitchy Eyes
Dare we say that this is perhaps one of the most annoying eye problems of all? Those involuntary eyelid spasms, known as lid myokymia, can be enough to drive anyone crazy, but most of the time, they’re not a cause for serious concern.
Sometimes, there are simple explanations for a twitching eyelid, such as stress, eye strain, or lack of sleep. You may even need a new or updated eye prescription. But in rare cases, persistent eye twitching could signify a more serious medical condition.
Stringy or Excessive Eye Mucus
Everyone is familiar with eye mucus—you might refer to it as “eye boogers” or “sleep.” But sometimes, eyes that are irritated or inflamed tend to produce excessive amounts of it. Extra mucus can lead to further eye problems like blurry vision. What’s more, repeatedly removing excess mucus can actually exacerbate symptoms.
Usually, underlying conditions such as dry eye or blepharitis and eye infections are responsible for excessive or stringy eye mucus.
Sore Eyes
Eyes may hurt for a number of reasons—injury, eyestrain, or misuse of contact lenses, just to name a few. Even headaches or congestion can originate behind the eyes and put pressure on them, causing soreness.
Blurry Vision
Vision problems such as blurriness can really impact daily life. Blurriness could indicate it’s time for a new or updated eye prescription, or it could stem from an eye disorder or other medical condition. Or blurry vision could be related to your contacts.
Remember: Eye Problem Solving Should Be Left to an Expert
When you’re experiencing issues with your eyes or vision, it’s understandable that you want a quick solution. But it bears repeating that most eye problems have many possible causes. Only a comprehensive eye exam with an expert optometrist or ophthalmologist can reliably get to the bottom of things.
