All About Eye Allergies
Pollen can set off weeping, blurred vision, itching and rubbing.
Why do the eyes suffer so, and where do you find relief?
When Ken Hegan traveled to Vancouver last February to help cover the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, the Toronto-based filmmaker, humour writer and National Post columnist ended up taking in far more than the international sporting events and round-the-clock festivities. The city was experiencing one of the warmest winters on record, and the trees had begun showering unwitting visitors with an early blast of pollen. Before long, Hegan’s eyes were red and teary – and it wasn’t because of those golden Olympic moments.
“It felt like my eyes were being assaulted by pollen. It’s like pollen hates me and is waiting for me while I sleep,” says Hegan with a laugh. “Sometimes I wake up and my eyes are caked shut. And when I walk my dog in the morning, I look like I’m crying. My neighbours just think I’m some sad sack guy who cries all the time.”
Like millions of fellow allergy sufferers, Hegan’s eyes itch, burn, swell and redden every pollen season, and his vision blurs because of the non-stop tearing. (Others can get such eye symptoms from allergy triggers such as pet dander, mould and dust mites.) As an avid cyclist, Hegan even fears red lights because when he stops moving, his baby blues well up – and the itch kicks in. “I’m always knuckling away at my eyes. I know I’m not supposed to, but my mom’s not there to tell me to stop,” he jokes.
Despite their mothers’ admonitions to quit that knuckling, people with allergic conjunctivitis – the inflammation of the membrane that covers the white of the eye and the inner eyelid – find that easier said than done. The fact is, they are faced with an annoying and uncomfortable reaction that occurs when pollens or other allergens enter the eye and trigger the same allergic chemical cascade that can occur in the lungs, the nose or on the skin.
Dr. Harold Kim, an allergist based in Kitchener, Ontario, explains that allergic patients’ eyes contain cells – mostly mast cells – that are primed for allergen exposure. When confronted with the allergen, antibodies called IgE will cause the mast cells to explode and release chemicals including histamine, one of the main culprits behind the inflammatory response in the eye and surrounding tissues.
For most patients, the resulting symptoms are an annoyance. But the results can be much more serious, especially for those who experience swelling of the conjunctiva itself.
“It looks almost like jelly,” says Kim, who himself suffers from mild eye symptoms during allergy season. “It’s not vision-impairing, but it’s very irritating.” However, in the most severe cases, the cornea itself can be affected if people don’t resist the temptation to rub and scratch. “The mechanism is not completely known, but it may be partly from inflammation and partly from scratching, and that can be vision-impairing,” Kim warns. “So those patients should see an opthalmologist and be treated relatively aggressively.”
CONTACT LENSES
People who wear contact lenses tend to be even more affected by allergic conjunctivitis, since the contacts themselves are an additional irritant, and they tend to dry the eyes and trap the pollen. For those patients, it means that when tree or grass pollen season rolls in, the contacts need to come out; and if they suffer from allergic conjunctivitis year-round, eyeglasses may be the way to go. “It’s sometimes not popular to wear glasses,” says Kim. “But like any inflammatory problem, you really don’t want a foreign body in there, so you have to keep the contacts out.”
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Related Reading
- Outdoor Allergies Resource Hub - a compilation of our best.
- 10 Ways To Beat Pollen.
- Hay Fever Handbook - all you'll need to cope.
- Trees that Make You Sneeze
- Ragweed's Rule - investigating the worst of the allergenic weeds.
- Stinging Insect Allergies - when is it a serious reaction?
