Wildfire smoke in your eyes? Doctors say we need to do more to study its long-term impacts

Kate LeBlanc remembers how wildfire smoke that drifted across the skies of New Brunswick earlier this summer clung to her eyes, making them feel gritty. 

"It's like having a pair of glasses on that you can't clean," said the 71-year-old resident of Bathurst, N.B. "It really felt like fine grains of sand or something." 

The smoke, on top of her seasonal allergies, meant LeBlanc was constantly flushing out her eyes. She told CBC News that she used a bottle of eye wash drops and two bottles of allergy drops in just a few months. 

"I basically hide out," she said of how she prevents symptoms. "I don't go outside, I don't open the windows."

This year, wildfires in Canada have been the worst on record, with winds pushing smoke across the country and into parts of the United States. On these especially hazy days, some eye doctors told CBC News they saw more patients reporting irritated eyes. 

Eye health experts are concerned that as wildfires become a more common phenomenon, we aren't studying the long-term impacts the smoke could have on our eyes.

"There's particulate matter, volatile organic compounds," said Dr. Marisa Sit, a Toronto ophthalmologist with the University Health Network's Comprehensive Ophthalmology Unit at the Donald K. Johnson Eye Institute. 

"These are things [in the smoke] that can irritate our eyes." 

Wildfire smoke in the eyes can cause them to feel dry, itchy, red, painful, watery and gritty — all symptoms similar to seasonal allergies. This sort of inflammation of the conjunctiva, or white part of the eye, is known as conjunctivitis. 

If the cornea — or clear part of the eye — becomes inflamed, it's called keratitis. 

At times, this inflammation can even cause vision to blur. 

According to Vancouver ophthalmologist Dr. Briar Sexton, these eye symptoms can happen before we smell or see the smoke. 

Even though this type of temporary irritation can be soothed with a lubricant like over-the-counter artificial tears, doctors worry about the impact of chronic long-term exposure to harmful smoke particles. 

"When I first moved to B.C. and started practising in 2006, we weren't talking about wildfires anywhere near the way that we are now," said Sexton.