Health Tips

Archive for the ‘sunglasses’ Category

Stop Getting Screwed: Its bad for your Health

September 19th, 2009

Parker Chuks

Stopping is cool. The celebrities are always seen at it. It’s cheap. You may even get pleasure out of it. Oh and no it’s not sex.

Of course you knew the above is just a huge euphemism and I’m talking about wearing sunglasses. I mean how often do you go outside without sunglasses on and walk around screwing your eyes up. Well, if you do this often, keep reading and you’ll see what horrors you could cause.

Despite the fact that the Sun is around 93 million miles away it still posses a serious threat to your eye health. As you know the sun sends Ultraviolet (UV) radiation to the earth all the time. This is the main reason we wear (or should be wearing) sunglasses.

Recent studies have shown that overexposure to UV rays without proper protection can cause cataracts (see picture below). Cataracts can reduce your visual abilities significantly and require an operation to remove. I thought of including a picture of surgery to increase the shock factor but I decided

If cataracts are not bad enough in extreme cases it can even cause keratitis which is very bad news indeed. This results in temporary blindness coupled with an extreme burning sensation brought about by an inflammation of the cornea (when you poke your dye it’s the first bit you touch).

Yet, you may be sitting reading this thinking I don’t spend long periods of time being exposed to UV rays with unprotected eyes and thus, this will not do any harm and the above won’t happen. Except it does not need to be a long period of exposure as the effects are cumulative: short periods of time a little too often will land you in the doctors office receiving a stern row- which may get under you’re skin. But not in the same way as the surgeon will.

I hope I have terrified you into wearing sunglasses when you go out. But I don’t want you to go around the house like a lunatic with a hammer, paint brush and tin of paint; smashing every light bulb and painting every window black. While sitting in pitch dark with a balaclava without eye slits and a pair of sunglasses on top. That would just be “too far in fact, far too far”.

All you need to do is get a good pair of sunglasses and wear them. I have to buy a new pair as the lens of my old ones fell out. When I go to buy my new pair I will keep in mind the functionality look on the tag for light absorption/light reflection percentage. You want to go for the highest to give the best protection.

With this article I intended not to increase paranoia (as so many online health articles are notorious for) I simply intended to raise awareness. Finally, I don’t work for a sunglasses company so I’m not hawking another thing so many online articles can be notorious for.