If it’s summertime where you live, as it is here in Seattle, I hope you are enjoying the great weather, getting exercise and recreation and, of course, making sure you take the often simple, but necessary, precautions to protect your vision. (On the other hand, if it’s winter where you are, here’s a post for you.)
Those summertime precautions include wearing high-quality sunglasses whenever you are outside, using the right eye protection during sports and while you are working around the house and knowing what to do if you or a loved one experiences an eye injury.
- Keep the UV rays away – I’ve talked about protecting your eyes from the sun several times on this blog, including here and here, but the subject is very important and worth mentioning again. The folks at Johnson & Johnson (who, by the way, are modeling a very robust and informative social media presence) recently posted on the subject and provided several useful links. One fact from their post that is quite compelling pertains to children, who may receive the equivalent of the recommended lifetime exposure to UV rays before they reach age 18. I hope you will learn all you can about what the sun can do to your children’s eyes (and yours!) and do what you can to limit exposure and damage.
- Prevent sports-related eye injuries – Probably the most frequent topic on this blog is the importance of wearing eye protection during sports, which I wrote about most recently in this post, but I can’t overemphasize how important it is. Few injuries are as devastating as the loss of an eye to a sports-related injury, especially since 90 percent of sports-related eye injuries can be prevented with the right eye protection. Your kids may fight you. They may not want to wear goggles or face masks (or, for that matter, seat belts or bike helmets) but those are battles that every parent should fight and win.But you are not off the hook, parents. One of the most important things you can do is model appropriate behavior for your children – that includes protecting your own eyes when you engage in sports or activities around the house, such as home repair and gardening. (Moms actually seem to get this, but dads, unfortunately, not so much.)
- Be careful with the pyrotechnics – It wouldn’t be summer here in the United States without Fourth of July celebrations, and what’s a Fourth of July celebration without fireworks? Very often, the pyrotechnic-related fun that starts around the holiday lasts all summer long. So even if the Fourth has gone by, we still need to take care.
I love a great fireworks show as much as anyone, but as an ophthalmologist and a parent, I am adamant about leaving the pyrotechnics to the professionals and keeping firecrackers (including bottle rockets and sparklers) out of the hands of children. According to Prevent Blindness America, in 2007 more than 40 percent of all fireworks injuries were to children under the age of 15, with sparklers accounting for most of the injuries to children age four and under that required medical attention.
I’ve posted about fireworks and firecrackers here and here. A major focus of the latter post is ensuring you know what to do if you are faced with responding to a pyrotechnic-related eye injury. In that post you’ll find a link to a very informative quiz that will help steer you in the right direction.
You have my sincere best wishes for a safe and wonderful summer!
