02 June 2023 , 11:05
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It may hit that itch you were hoping to be scratched, but rubbing your eyes can actually have a horrifying side effect, a doctor has warned.
A health expert has said the act of rubbing your eyes can have a severe impact on your eyeballs, potentially wreaking irreversible damage or even blindness.
Sr Sam, a GP from Singapore, claims doing do deteriorates your eyesight over time, and has warned people against developing a nasty habit of it.
The practitioner used his TikTok platform to discuss why rubbing your eyes can be risky, and said the habit could be particularly dangerous for those who are short-sighted as it increases the chances of retinal detachment.
"Using your knuckles or the back of your had increases the pressure more than using your finger tips," he said.
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Over time, rubbing your eyes can increase pressure and even change the shape of your corneas (Getty Images/EyeEm)One teenager - 18-year-old Tahmeed Rasheed from Australia - was rendered completely blind in one eye while losing the majority of his vision in the other, after developing an addictive habit of constantly rubbing his eyes as a toddler.
Although rare (affecting one in 2,000 people), the teenager developed a condition where his cornea shape actually changed over time, Dr Sam said, due to the amount he was rubbing them.
"He has been rubbing his eyes since the age of one," the doctor said, based on reports.
"His eye rubbing led to a condition called keratoconus," he added.
An MRI showing what happens to a person's eyes when they're rubbed isn't for the faint-hearted, showing a gruesome image of the eyeballs being pushed into the skull.
"You can tell the amount of pressure that is put and how the eye changes shape," he said.
"Eye rubbing can increase your eye pressure by 20 times."
"If you have an eye rubbing habit you want to 'Shake It Off," the doctor joked, referring to a picture of singer Taylor Swift appearing to rub her eyes on the Jimmy Kimmel show.
Short-sighted people in particular run higher risks in general when it comes to their eyes, Dr Sam said, and should avoid activities such as sky-diving.
Dr Sam's warning came as part of his "new fears unlocked" series on the platform, where he reveals horrifying health stories that happened to other people to prevent them happening to others.
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Others include a chef whose fingers turned black after cutting his skin while preparing prawns, developing flesh-eating bacteria, as well as one woman who developed gangrene and lost her leg due to toxic shock syndrome from her tampon.