Cover and Protect: The Importance of Wearing Eyewear Around the House

If you have been wanting to get out of having to do chores around the house like cleaning the bathroom or mopping the floors, now may be your chance. Did you know that 125,000 eye related injuries are caused each year by household products like bleach? Not to mention, the hundreds of thousands of injuries that are caused by using household tools like a sander or saw. By getting into the habit of wearing the proper protective eyewear, you can ensure that you avoid a trip to the ER or worse, cause permanent eye damage. Read on to learn more about common household eye injuries and how you can prevent them.

Cleaning
Unless you have an abundant amount of money to hire a live-in maid, you are going to have to clean parts of your house sooner or later. Whether you are cleaning your kitchen countertops or your bathtub, make sure that you are using the proper safety precautions:

• Point the cleaner away from your face
• Clean in a well-ventilated area
• Don’t touch your face or eyes after using a cleaning product

Using Tools
It’s easy to get into the bad habit of not wearing protective eyewear when using household tools like a sander or saw, especially when you are doing a quick project. However, things like sawdust, dust, dirt, and woodchips can easily fly into your eye and cause permanent corneal damage. To make sure that you don’t forget to wear your protective eyewear, try keeping a pair of glasses in your toolbox. By seeing your glasses as soon as you open it, it will be easier for you to remember to wear them.

If you are cleaning your house or using power tools and you get something in your eye, try to flush it immediately using clean, lukewarm water. If, however, you can’t get it out of your eye or if you have suffered severe damage either contact poison control or visit the emergency room— an eye injury is not something you want to mess with. To learn more about how you can practice eye safety, contact Millennium Park Eye Center today!