What are some symptoms of COVID-19 in regards to your eyes?
The most reported eye related symptoms is conjunctivitis. This can be very mild or very intense depending on how your immune system responds to the virus. It can be accompanied by some tearing, thick mucousy discharge, swelling of the eye lids and some blurry vision. This will generally last somwhere between 7-14 days and will not result in most cases will not result in any permanent damage to the eye. Eye drops prescribed by your optometrist can help to lessen the symptoms but will not stop the infection. This can be a source for the disease to spread so good hand hygiene is recommended as you will likely rub your eyes a couple times.
A major concern that most of our patients have nowadays is that with all the working from home people are doing, is there any effect on their vision? There are a couple of questions that we need to ask ourselves and the most concerning is how much more screen time are we and our family members getting? For most of us working from home there are ergonomic issues that we likely need to address as well as challenges with adjusting our work environment to fit out vision needs. For cases of anyone over 40, you might find yourself straining your neck to get the right view out of your Progressive, reading or computer lenses. Remember that ergonomic adjustment is important if you're spending more than 30 minutes at a time on your computer.
For Children and young adults we need to be wary of the devices they are using, usage time and brightness levels. I always recommend a larger screen at a longer viewing distance in order to help reduce accommodative (focus related) eye strain. This is especially important in children under the age of 8 as their eyes are still developing and there can be an increased risk of myopia associated with the excess indoor time. Always try your best to get the kids outside and active as it has been shown that a minimum of 3 hours of outdoor activity can positively impact a child’s risk of developing nearsightedness.