An American optometrist has people looking twice after revealing the one bad habit thousands are guilty of, and why it could be putting your vision at risk.
Dr Fraser, an eye doctor from Detroit, has racked up more than 2.2million views on TikTok after interviewing his colleagues about the worst thing patients do to their eyes.
Their answers were unanimous.
‘Eye rubbing,’ one optometrist warned in the clip.
‘You need to stop. Don’t rub your eyes.’
However, instead of banning the action altogether she offered a practical, and much safer, alternative.
‘Please, for the love of God, if you need to rub your eye, instead of rubbing the eyeball, rub the bone,’ she advised.
‘It’ll scratch the itch, but it will put you at less risk of diseases like keratoconus.’
Dr Fraser, an eye doctor from Detroit, has racked up more than 2.2million views on TikTok after revealing that rubbing our eyes is one of the worst things we can do
Instead of banning the action altogether, he and his fellow optometrist’s offered a practical, and much safer, alternative – to rub the bone around the eye to ‘scratch the itch’
Keratoconus is a progressive eye condition where the cornea (the clear front surface of the eye) thins and bulges into a cone shape.
This can distort vision, and in severe cases requires surgery or corneal transplants.
Eye rubbing, experts say, is a major risk factor.
Another optometrist in Dr Fraser’s clinic added that the habit doesn’t just damage the eye itself, it can also speed up the ageing process around them.
‘It makes your skin loose, don’t do it,’ she said, warning that the delicate tissue around the eyes is particularly prone to stretching and wrinkling.
A third specialist kept it simple and very direct.
‘Don’t rub your eyes,’ she said.
Worryingly, eye rubbing isn’t the only issue Dr Fraser’s team flagged. One colleague pointed out that many don’t blink enough, especially when glued to screens.
‘Patients will be working on a computer, reading, students will be studying, and they’re just too focused on what they’re doing and they don’t blink,’ he said.
‘I’m starting to see kids coming in with lid issues and dryness, and I think if you just practice blinking you’ll save yourself a lot of hassle.’
Experts recommend taking regular breaks from screens, consciously blinking more often, and if your eyes feel itchy, gently pressing on the bony orbital rim rather than the eyeball itself.
Dr Fraser’s video has struck a chord with viewers, many of whom admitted they were guilty of both bad habits, and others already suffering the negative effects.
‘Yep, I have keratoconus,’ one wrote.
‘I can attest that due to allergies and being uninformed, I rubbed my eyes and now my left eye has it and I have zero clue how to fix or if there is a fix.’
‘As soon as the rubbing was mentioned I had an eye itch. It’s like it knew,’ another added.
‘Me blinking a million times after watching the video,’ a viewer said in jest.
‘I have keratoconus, pleeeease don’t rub your eyes.’
