You don´t know what you got until it´s gone. That applies to many things in live but especially to our eyes. They make us see how beautiful the world can be and having bad vision and ugly eyes from kitesurfing is not what you want. And it may come as a surprise to many of us but kitesurfing and surfing in general can have a huge impact on your vision. Very scary but luckily it’s reversible with surgery and even better: it’s preventable. 

Surfer’s eye

Surfer’s eye

Many surfers in colder climates (like ours) are aware of the so called surfer’s ear where irritation from cold wind and water exposure causes the bone surrounding the ear canal to develop lumps of new bony growth which constrict the ear canal. The surfer’s eye or in medical terms Pterygium (speak out is terygium) is less known but in someways based on the same principle.

We give our eyes a hard time on the water and the beach with salt water, wind (both makes your eye dry) and irritation from the sun. And let’s not forget about the sand in stormy conditions. Especially salt water surfers are used to have red eyes after a good session. That is usually gone the next day. To my surprise one day my eyes did not return back to normal anymore. Not after two days, a week and even longer. I started to notice that something was different around the time of the first lock down due to Covid-19 so it took a while before I was able to get some medical advice.

After 6 weeks my eyes were still red and I still had the feeling of sand in my eye. After 2 months of waiting I was finally able to see an ophthalmologist in the hospital. She ran a few tests on my eyes and did some examinations with a slit lamp before she came to the conclusion that this was a Pterygium. And lucky me: I have one in both eyes

Lees verder op:  https://www.wetestkites.com/2020/11/15/an-eye-for-an-eye/