The impact of COVID-19 is still keeping a lot of people at home. This means you may be tackling home improvement projects around the home, yard work, deep cleaning, cooking more than usual, or doing activities to help keep your kids occupied. Normally, almost half of all eye injuries happen at home, but now, that risk may be even higher while you are spending more time at home.
Here are a few tips on how you can prevent a potential eye injury from happening.
Protecting Your Eyes When Using Tools or Doing Yard Work
Using tools, whether hand tools or power tools can put you at a higher risk of an eye injury. Too often, tools, screws, nail, metal scraps, or wood particles can cause injuries to eyes even when you know what you are doing. If you are working with tools, make sure to wear ANSI-approved protective goggles. Doing so can help reduce your risk of an eye injury by 90 percent.
Mowing your lawn or using a trimmer can kick up dirt, rocks, and other debris at your face that can injure your eyes. You should also wear goggles while doing yard work to keep debris out of your eyes.
Common Household Products Can Cause Eye Injuries
More than 125,000 eye injuries are caused each year from using common household cleaning products. Getting bleach or oven cleaner in your eyes can be especially dangerous. Remember to always be careful while using such products and only use as recommended. Read product labels and do not mix products because that could cause chemical reactions that could cause liquids to splash up into your eyes.
If you are exploring your culinary skills during your time at home, be careful when cooking foods in oil or grease. Hot oil and grease can burn not only your skin, but your eyes, too. Remember to use grease shields on your pots and pans to prevent injuries from splattering.
Keep Your Eyes Safe During Play
Avoid allowing your children to play with projectile toys, like BB guns, bows and arrows or darts that could cause serious eye injuries. Playing sports like baseball, street hockey, or racket sports can put you at a higher risk of an eye injury. Wearing protective sports eyewear can help keep your eyes safer than wearing sunglasses that could increase the severity of an eye injury.
Your vision is nothing to fool around with. If you or a family member experiences an eye injury, you need to seek medical attention right away. Contact Valley Eyecare Center at (602) 955-2700 or schedule an appointment online.
