Too much fun in the sun can cause eye damage

Experts advise acquiring the sunglass habit early


At 5 p.m., as Jose Vega uncaps a tiny, $100 tube of ointment, he thinks of work. As a chef at Jabinero's in Kansas City, Mo., he should already be spreading ingredients — onions, peppers, meats — across the restaurant stovetop. But instead, he is spreading ointment over two rows of stitches in his eyes, and he can't come close to that stove, or any stove, for five more weeks.

For another five weeks, his wife, Tanya, will have to keep the family of five afloat with nonstop nightly shifts at St. Luke's Hospital on top of nursing school classes. Vega, who had his third pterygium ---- a layer of tissue that grows over the eye, starting at the inside corner ---- removed last week, has to stay clear from sun and heat for that long to recover.

The pterygiums, which Vega got from subjecting his eyes to too much sunlight, are just one of many problems the sun can cause in human eyes, said Vega's surgeon Carl Stout, of Discover Vision. Others, he said, vary from keratitis ---- a sunburn on the eye ---- to a higher risk and a faster onset of more serious conditions, such as cataracts and macular degeneration.

The danger for all eye damage from the sun is significantly greater in summer. People are closer to the sun, and its light is more intense. Activities such as water sports and games on concrete only raise that risk by exposing people to reflected light, too.

But unfortunately, a lack of awareness on the harm of sunlight to eyes, and what people need for full protection, is also great, Strout said. As a result, doctors are trying to educate their patients more with each exam.

"It's just one more thing that we can protect ourselves from, if we're a little aware of the problem," said Lee Duffner, a Hollywood, Fla., ophthalmologist. "If we're totally unaware of the problem, nobody's going to do anything."

No one knew

For Vega, the principal problem was a lack of education on eye care. As a boy, he played soccer daily with friends in his hometown of Guanaguanto, Mexico, without sunglasses. Later, as a young man, he picked broccoli all day on a sunny farm in Soledad, Calif., with his eyes still unprotected.

Eventually, his first pterygium at age 23 was his eyes' way of saying "enough" and trying to block out any future harmful light on their own.

Before a pterygium, Vega probably had a cinguecula, or an "unsightly thickening" of the membrane, that often affects outdoor workers like farmers and lifeguards. With more exposure, that thickening worsened into the growths that Stout had to remove. Both pterygiums and cingueculas are more unusual in that they are caused by UVA light that that affects the conjunctiva membrane, covering the white part of the eye, Duffner said.

UVA and UVB light

Of the sunlight's three kinds of ultraviolet, or UV, light ---- UVA, UVB and UVC ---- only the first two types, common for sunglass labels, enter the atmosphere to be of concern. Most eye problems occur because of UVB light, which has a shorter wavelength that can penetrate the cornea.


