Ophthalmologists from California were surprised to discover that several of their patients had one thing common; using sunscreen instead of sunglasses to protect their eyes from the sun.
“One of my colleagues at moonlight here stated yesterday that they had patients presenting at their clinic that put sunscreen on their eyeball, and presented that they were having pain and they were referred to an ophthalmologist”
Trish Patterson, a nurse from from Redding, California, explained that several patients were demonstrating these symptoms in the hospital where she worked. When asked why, these people explained that they used sunscreen as a way of protecting themselves from the solar eclipse that took place a couple of weeks ago. These patients tried to replace the protective solar eclipse glasses with some spray or lotion, which is honestly, not the brightest idea.
Patterson also explained that she didn’t tend to any other eclipse related injuries while working. For all the warnings regarding the dangers of looking at the eclipse directly without any protection, news outlets and experts forgot to warn people against being extremely dumb.
Poison control recommends washing your eyes the minute they get in contact with sunscreen or bug repellent for 15 – 20 minutes. After resting them for a little while, you’re supposed to call them or to visit the poison control website which will explain the steps you have to follow in order to take care of your symptoms. We hope you didn’t spray any sunscreen in your eyes because that’s just dumb and embarrassing.
