5 tips for eye health

Do you know how to look after your eyes? Here are Vithas Xanit Hospital 5 basic tips.

Our sight is one of our body's most important senses but we don’t always pay it the attention or look after it as we should. Following a few simple recommendations can help us to keep our eyes healthy. Today Dr Cilveti from Vithas Xanit International Hospital’s Ophthalmology Department offers us some advice on how to look after and improve our visual health.

1. Remember to clean your eyes: washing your eyelids daily with pH neutral gentle soap and water is recommended. Women should be careful to completely remove their make-up on a daily basis. Leaving make-up on during the night can lead to irritation at the edge of the eyelid resulting in eye complaints such as conjunctivitis.

2. Use artificial tears regularly: they help to clean and refresh our eyes, especially if we spend a lot of time at the computer of if we are exposed to very hot or dry environments.

3. Take care with solar radiation, sea water and when in the pool: our eyes need to be protected from solar radiation, especially in summer. We now know that exposure to the sun is associated with Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and cataracts. Using sunglasses, graduated if necessary, helps us to protect our eyes from solar radiation. Using specifically designed sunglasses when practising water sports is also recommended.

4. Avoid spending too many hours consecutively at your computer: have a break every 20 minutes, continuous computer use can cause eye discomfort as a result of tired or dry eyes.

5. Sleep well: making sure we rest and sleep for around 8 hours a night improves eye lubrication and eye recovery during the night. Regeneration of the corneal and conjunctival epithelium occurs whilst we are sleeping.

At Vithas Xanit Hospital we also recommend periodical review with the Ophthalmologist (at least once a year) in conjunction with the above guidelines. If you would like to know more about our Ophthalmology Service at Vithas Xanit please click here