When your eye is irritated, as it may be with pink eye or certain allergies, the blood vessels located in the front of the eye will dilate and engorge. “That’s what causes the white part of the eye to look red and angry,” Holmes explained.
Those blood vessels serve an important purpose — when inflamed, they indicate something is wrong, Holmes said. This could be due to a mild problem, such as a cold or dust in the eye, or it may be a symptom of a more serious health condition like an infection, glaucoma, or a corneal abrasion.
“It’s not normal to have a red, angry-looking eye,” Holmes said.
Red-eye relieving drops target these blood vessels to constrict and minimize their appearance. Temporarily, this makes the eyes white again, however, these drops could mask the problem at hand.
“It may make you think everything is OK with your eyes when really there can be something quite serious going on,” Holmes said. “It’s a band-aid, not a fix,” she added.
That redness can help your eye doctor detect eye diseases. With certain eye conditions, time is of the essence. Left untreated, they can worsen and lead to complications, including infections, and, in serious cases, vision loss.
Not to mention, these drops may cause a rebound effect. “As the eye drops wear off and nutrients and oxygen start to flow back through those blood vessels, they actually will dilate and engorge more than initially,” Holmes said.
People can then get trapped in a cycle: their eyes appear red and irritated, they use redness-relieving drops that provide temporary relief, but then the redness comes back — this time, even worse — and they use the drops again. In some cases, people become dependent on red-eye relieving drops, and the underlying health issue is never addressed, Holmes said.
