Blink at your high-end gadgets to keep cornea-peeling at bay

A 33-year-old man working with a MNC landed at an ophthalmologist’s clinic with an eye infection. What looked like conjunctivitis turned out to be a case of cornea peeling.

Doctors say they are getting more and more youth with this problem, mainly because they spend a lot of time staring at their high-end phones and laptops without blinking.

Vijay Gupta, 43, director (marketing), PD Hinduja hospital, who recently recovered from cornea peeling, said, “My right eye turned red and started watering. I thought it was conjunctivitis and washed my eye. When it became unbearable, I went to an ophthalmologist who told me that the cornea was peeling off.” Gupta had to wear a contact lens and took 2-3 days to recover.

Dr Nisheeta Agarwala, consulting ophthalmologist at PD Hinduja hospital, said, “The blink rate in computer/high-end phone users is very poor than the normal one. When you don’t blink a lot, tears become stagnant and eyes feel dry. The tear quality changes and a vicious cycle is set up of tear dysfunction.”

The normal blink rate is 15-16/minute. For someone concentrating on computer/phone screen, it reduces to 3-4.

Agarwala added the degree of problem depends from person to person. “If we take 100 people using computer for long hours, everyone will have the problem but few complain.
Redness of eye should be taken seriously,” she said.

Dr Nagendra Shah, consultant ophthalmologist at Bombay hospital, said in a metro city like Mumbai the problem is getting acute and more common. “People are spending more and more hours concentrating on screens. Staring for long hours leads to dysfunction of the tear films and dryness of eyes. You tend to rub the dry-itchy eyes and that leads to what we call computer vision syndrome,” he added.

@somitapal