Visine bad?!

Visine bad?

i read somewhere that if u use eye drops like visine before u go out that it makes ur eyes look clearer, it enhances the color by making the whiteness clearer and makes u look healthier so i do that all the time, especially when i go out with my bf and with my friends. i have been doing it for about a month now and havent noticed any bad reactions but i was just wondering if this could potentially hurt me in the long run? could it do any damage to me and my eyes? serious answers only please :)

p.s i wear contacts in case that matters..im not sure if it does...and i use the regular visine that moisturizes and gets the red out (thats what the bottle says lol)

yes, visine is bad for you. the package insert says not to use it more than 10 consecutive days, and theres a reason for that: its unhealthy for your eyes when used for more than 10 days.

visine and clear eyes are potent vasoconstrictors. they just make your eyes look "whiter" by vastly constricting blood vasculature on the surface of the eye. this is certainly not "healthy". in fact, your eye *hates* this.

prolonged use of visine cuts off blood flow to the limbal region of your cornea...the portion responsible for making new corneal cells. if that area is deprived of oxygen for long enough, you'll eventually develop corneal limbal stem cell dysfunction and potential permanent vision loss.

obviously that would not happen in an otherwise healthy person over the course of only a month, as you say...but thats where you're likely headed if you use it multiple times a day every day for years at a time. it can *very* bad for you when used that way.

it also causes "rebound hyperemia" or what i refer to as "visine addiction". basically your eyes get so used to the drug that not only does the whitening effect eventually wear off...it gets to where you have red eyes all the time, even when you do use the drops. thats right...visine will actually CAUSE your eyes to be chronically red if you use it all the time.

visine and clear eyes have their place in medicine, just never for chronic use. here's when to use visine: if you have red eyes not from a serious infectious or inflammatory process and you need to QUICKLY and temporarily look "normal" for a job interview or your wedding pictures or whatever. it was never designed to "keep" your eyes white all the time. in fact it does the opposite...when used chronically it actually CAUSES chronic red eyes.