Do you suffer from seasonal allergies? You’re not alone if you do, since millions of people have allergies and deal with their symptoms.
One of the most common allergens is tree pollen. If you have a pollen allergy, springtime can feel like pure torment.
No one likes struggling with itchy, red, and watery eyes all season long. You may try turning to medication, but you still find your symptoms to be unbearable.
Well, there might be a solution to making your seasonal allergies better, and it may not be what you’d expect: LASIK! By getting LASIK, you can ease some of your allergy symptoms.
How? It all has to do with how pollen gets in your eyes in the first place. Keep reading to learn more about how LASIK could help improve your allergies!
Allergic Conjunctivitis
Conjunctivitis is a catch-all term for anything that causes inflammation in the conjunctiva. The conjunctiva is the tissue that lines the inside of the eyelid and the outside of your eye.
Allergic conjunctivitis is, as the name would suggest, occurs when the cause of this inflammation is allergens. When you’re allergic to something, like pollen, special cells in your eye called mast cells produce histamine when exposed to that allergen.
Histamine is a substance your body produces as part of an immune response. When this immune response happens, it makes the blood vessels in the affected area swell.
With an allergic reaction, your body registers the allergen as a disease that it needs to attack. The dilation of blood vessels causes your eyes to itch, become watery, and experience symptoms of allergic conjunctivitis.
There are several ways to combat this response. The main one is taking allergy medication in the form of antihistamines.
But the effect of these drugs may be limited based on the severity of the allergic reaction. They also tend to make you drowsy. They can make you so drowsy, in fact, that antihistamines are a common ingredient in sleeping medications.
If antihistamines don’t work for you, then what do you do? There are a variety of prescriptions and complicated treatments that you can try, but before doing that, you may want to address the cause of your allergies. For some people, the allergen itself may only be part of the equation. The other part? Contact lenses.
Contacts and Allergens
Contact lenses are about as common these days as glasses, if not more common than them. They can be more convenient than glasses and most of the time, you may even forget you have them on!
But they can cause several issues with how healthy your eyes are. For one thing, they can dry out your eyes. If you ever wondered why your eyes felt dry after wearing your contact lenses for too long, this is why.
It’s also the reason why you need to use plenty of contact solution when wearing them. Sometimes, prolonged use can even cause an allergic reaction all on its own.
But even if you use your contacts correctly and aren’t allergic, they can make your allergic reactions to other allergens so much worse. Pollen tends to get everywhere in the spring.
Just doing something simple, like opening your car door, can leave pollen residue on your hand. Then if that hand touches your face, you’re putting pollen close to your eye.
This may not be as much of a problem if you aren’t wearing contacts, as pollen has trouble sticking directly to the eye. But when you’re wearing contacts, it can stick very easily.
And if your eyes are at all dry from wearing contacts, your allergy symptoms can become even worse. Even if you never touch your eyes without washing your hands (as you should), it’s very easy for pollen to get blown into your face while you’re outdoors.
Without glasses protecting your eyes, pollen can stick right onto your contacts. With pollen trapped on top of your eye, it will continue causing an allergic reaction until you wash it out of your eye.
If you’re someone who wears contacts and has a strong reaction to seasonal allergies, this could very well be what’s happening. The problem is that it’s a bit of an endless cycle anytime you wear contact lenses during allergy season.
So, what’s the solution? You could wear glasses, but if you’re someone who prefers contacts, that isn’t the ideal solution. But there is a way you can achieve visual freedom and no longer need to wear glasses or contacts.
How? It’s as simple as getting LASIK if you’re a good candidate!
A Life Without Contacts
Getting LASIK means not having to wear contacts and still being able to see. LASIK is a permanent procedure that reshapes your eye. By reshaping the eye, it corrects refractive errors like nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism.
Who wouldn’t love to enjoy decades of visual freedom and finally getting some relief from their allergy symptoms at the same time? And LASIK doesn’t only save you from allergies, but it also saves you from all the frustrations that come with wearing contacts.
For instance, did you know that wearing contacts considerably raises your risk of getting an eye infection? You actually have a higher likelihood of getting an eye infection from contacts than you do from undergoing an eye procedure like LASIK.
Contacts may work well for some people, but there’s no doubt they come with their fair share of risks. And even once you put aside the risks to your eye health, there’s the matter of convenience.
If you get LASIK, you don’t need to spend any more time taking out and putting in contacts every day. You also don’t have to worry about losing one of your contacts or putting it on inside out!
LASIK streamlines your daily routine while also giving your eyes the break they need from allergies. So what are you waiting for? Take the first step in conquering allergy season by booking your LASIK consultation at Omaha Eye & Laser Institute in Omaha, NE today!
