Your mom told you staring at the sun or sitting too close to the TV could hurt your eyes. But did she tell you rubbing them could land you in the ER?
From a gentle brush to a firm knuckle massage, every time you rub your peepers you’re throttling up the pressure on them, explains Charles McMonnies, MSc, a professor of vision science at the University of New South Wales in Australia. And all that pressure can eventually lead to nerve damage, distorted vision, or something much worse.
An occasional rub is nothing to worry about. But if you’ve made a habit of jamming your palms into your eyes, that pressure build-up could lead to a detached retina, McMonnies warns. The retina is a thin layer of tissue on the back of your eyeball that translates visual data into the neural information your brain understands. And if it detaches—or separates from your eyeball—you could go permanently blind, McMonnies says. When it comes to rubbing your eyes, just don’t, he advises. It never helps—it only harms.
From the common to the uncanny, here are 8 more frightening ocular catastrophes.