Environmental Effects on Artificial Eyes

Learn About Environmental Effects on Artificial Eyes

What are the Environmental Effects on Artificial Eyes?Sometimes it can seem like there is always an allergen or change of season in the air to affect your artificial eye. Depending on the region where you live, and your specific allergic profile, you may sometimes experience discomfort or irritation with your artificial eye due to your environment.

On days with a lot of pollen, or when heaters dry the air inside your home, or when there are fires in the air or smog (as happens all too often in Southern California), irritation and secretion is a normal reaction. Of course these environmental factors can cause your prosthetic eye to become quite uncomfortable. Your eye may feel itchy and inflamed, and mucus secretion and excessive tearing is none too pleasant.

In such circumstances, the first solution would be to rinse out the eye with eye rinse – we recommend Ocusoft. If that doesn’t work, take the eye out and rinse it out by yourself with distilled water, tissue, clean hands (in many places with clean water, distilled water may be unnecessary). Be careful to put a plug in the sink so it doesn’t fall down the drain. Be cautious not to attempt to clean your eye with certain things like towels, toilet paper, or a sleeve or handkerchief as they are all loaded with harmful substances like bacteria or detergents.

If these measures fail, please contact your ocularist. There may be other issues with your artificial eye that would benefit from the treatment of a trained professional. While attempting to fix the issues yourself is fine, letting the issues get out of hand is not recommended. Typically, you do not even need to remove your piece more than a few times a year for cleaning, and we usually recommend having the ocularist do this for you. If you have any questions about the cleaning and care of your artificial eye, do not hesitate to contact us. You may also read more about care of your artificial eye at this post.