My Eye Hurts When I Blink: 5 Possible Causes
By TOI Staff
July 30, 2023
Update on : September 7, 2023
Did you know that you blink about 15 to 20 times per minute? That works out to be up to 1,200 times per hour, 19,200 times per day, and 134,400 times per week. During the average year, you might end up blinking over 7 million times in total.
With this in mind, you can imagine how frustrating it’ll be if your eyes hurt for whatever reason every time you blink. You’ll find yourself saying, “My eye hurts when I blink so much!”, every few seconds and wish there was a way to get it to stop.
To prevent this from happening, you should try to pinpoint the cause of your eye problems sooner rather than later. There are a handful of things that could be causing one or both of your eyes to hurt just about every time you blink.
Here are five possible causes of your eye pain.
1. Allergic Conjunctivitis
Are you allergic to pollen or mold spores? If so, you know first-hand just how difficult this can be on your eyes. You’re going to have to deal with red eyes, itchy eyes, and even pain in the eyes on a regular basis because of your allergies.
Allergic conjunctivitis is the official name for this condition. Those with it will experience inflammation in the part of their eyes called the conjunctiva. It’s a thin membrane designed to provide coverage for both your eyeballs and the inside of your eyelids.
When the conjunctiva is inflamed, you’re going to notice your eyes stinging and burning almost all the time. It’ll lead to you rubbing them at least a little, which will make the situation worse.
Don’t be surprised if you find yourself saying, “My eye hurts when I blink,” early and often when you have allergic conjunctivitis. You might even see the white part of your eye swollen like jelly due to your allergies. You’ll likely need to get your hands on special eye treatment products at this point to get relief.
2. Blepharitis
Your eyelids have very tiny hair follicles in them that are used to grow your eyelashes. Under normal circumstances, these hair follicles won’t present any problems. But there may be times when clogged oil glands in them can start to present problems and lead to pain in the eyes.
If the oil glands in the hair follicles for your eyelids ever get clogged up, your eyelids might start to get very itchy and even swell up on you. Your eyes might also get red and watery and begin to burn at all times.
While blepharitis isn’t exactly the most serious eye condition around, it can cause complications if you’re not careful and put you in a position where doing something as simple as blinking will hurt very badly.
3. Dry Eyes
In theory, you might think that having dry eyes is a good thing. It’ll mean you’re not crying your eyes out over something and feeling sad about it.
But if you have dry eyes, it can actually be pretty irritating. You might even find yourself saying, “My eye hurts when I blink,” until you figure out a way to eliminate the dryness in your eyes.
Your eyes are responsible for creating tears to do more than just help you cry. These tears also play a key part in your ability to move your eyes around, focus your eyes on things, and even blink.
You’ll typically need to start using eye drops if your eyes aren’t producing the right amount of tears. You might also need to begin taking more serious measures if your eyes remain dry for too long.
4. Stye
A stye is just about one of the worst things that you can get in one of your eyes. It’s going to produce a lot of pain, and it’ll also end up being contagious, which will force you to stay away from other people when you’re battling back against it.
If you ever find yourself fighting a stye in your eye, it’ll indicate that you have a staph infection in either your eyelash follicles or the oil glands that exist in your eyelids. Either way, this infection might cause your eyes to swell up, and it’ll also often lead to a lot of inflammation.
All of this will result in you experiencing your fair share of pain. And unfortunately, you’ll have to go to war with this pain on your own since you might give a stye to someone else if you’re around them.
5. Trauma to the Face
If you were hit in the face recently while playing a sport, working, or even fighting, you shouldn’t be shocked if you start to experience some eye pain when you blink. Some damage may have been done to your eye socket, your eyelid, or even your eye itself.
In this instance, you’ll almost always want to consult a doctor to see what you should do about your injured eye. You might need to undergo certain treatments to help your eye to heal.
Stop Saying, “My Eye Hurts When I Blink,” and Do Something About It
If you’ve been thinking, “My eye hurts when I blink,” it’s probably going to be almost impossible to ignore this pain for the time being. As we alluded to earlier, you’ll be reminded of this pain 15 to 20 times per minute when you blink.
Rather than trying to grit your teeth and continue living with pain in your eyes, you should speak with an eye doctor about your issue. They should be able to offer up a diagnosis and come up with a treatment plan that’ll make your eyes feel great again.
Browse through more of our blog articles to get additional information on improving your health.
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