so have you ever asked yourself what is this yellow spot on my eye or wanted to know why
they sometimes call this thing a surfer's eye in this video we're going to review
the signs symptoms and treatment for a pinguecula
versus pterygium both of which are very common things that happen on the eye so let's take a look
hey what's up dr allen here from the dr eye health show now if you've ever looked at your eye up
close in front of a mirror you may have noticed a yellow or pink spot kind of growing at either the
three or nine o'clock positions on that white part of your eye usually probably more prominent more
toward the nose or perhaps you've seen kind of this pink tissue growing from the white part of
the eye on over the cornea kind of going toward the center of your pupil those pink or yellow
spots that grow on the white part of the eye are often diagnosed as what is called a pinguecula
and is believed to be caused by environmental exposures to wind dust and uv light exposure
they also just tend to occur more often with age now let's compare a pinguecula to this
image here this is called a pterygium but is often commonly referred to as a surfer's
eye this appears as a white pink or red growth of tissue that extends from the white part of the eye
onto the clear surface of the eye in the front that we call the cornea if you or a friend have
one of these terrariums and you watch it over time you may see it grow very slowly
and extend over the eye now both a pinguecula and a pterygium are interestingly found more
often in men but are believed to occur due to uv light exposure irritation and the presence
of inflammation on the surface of the eye they are found on both the temporal and the nasal side
but interestingly enough they are noticed more often developing on the nasal aspect of the
eyes there's three different theories of why we think that it occurs more often toward the nose
the first of which is that sunlight would bounce off the side of somebody's nose and then just kind
of reflect it into the nasal aspect of the eye the second theory was that light would come in
from the temporal side here and then the light would internally reflect kind of like a prism
through the cornea and then that would kind of focus more on the nasal aspect
that theory has recently just kind of been disproven in a recent study in 2020 and then
they suggested that perhaps it's that inflammatory proteins and cytokines all flush toward the nasal
aspect of the eye toward the drainage canal and the presence of those inflammatory proteins
are kind of aggravating and causing things like pinguecula to pterygium which personally i think
that final theory makes the most sense now both the pinguecula and pterygium are more commonly
diagnosed in people that live closer to the earth's equator largely because the geography
uv light is a lot more intense there now you may be wondering why a pterygium is often called a
surfer's eye and it's largely because a lot of surfers and other beachgoers tend to develop
these pretty frequently and that's because they're not just exposed to sunlight coming straight down
on them from the sky but that sunlight bounces off of the water and they get hit twice and then you
mix that along with salt water wind you get a lot of irritation and that kind of causes the whole
problem i mean that's like a huge potent mix for eye irritation now as far as symptoms go for both
a pinguecula and pterygium a lot of people may not even feel anything wrong you may not even notice
it until your eye doctor maybe mentions something but usually if somebody feels anything at all
it just feels like kind of a mild irritation or something kind of like a dryness of the
eye however in case of something like a pinguecula where somebody has a lot of sunlight exposure over
a weekend and they have more dryness it may cause aggravation of that pinguecula leading to what
we call a pingueculitis and usually in that case they look even more red for a short period of time
and become a little bit more irritating but with pterygiums now remember pterygiums are
often progressive and this tissue will grow over the surface of the eye when this happens it can
induce what's called corneal astigmatism and this astigmatism is often irregular which can cause
blurred vision which is often unstable now if you've ever heard the term astigmatism
before but you're not entirely sure what that looks like one of the first videos i ever did
on this channel was about astigmatism if you want to check out the video i'll put links to that in
the video description below but uh just thinking about it it's been a while and i've come a long
way in this youtube thing so i may decide to remake that video and if and when that happens
i'll put an additional link to the newer version of that in the description below as well i know a
lot of people have astigmatism they're always worried about what that means so again check
that out if you want to learn more now let's talk about treatments for both the pinguecula and the
pterygium now thankfully treatment is usually pretty good and it starts with just prevention
the number one thing to prevent getting either of these is to try to wear uv light protecting
sunglasses pretty much every eye doctor is going to tell you to do that it's also good to consider
wearing really wide brim hats when you're out in the sunlight because that's going to add an extra
protective layer just to kind of shield the eyes and the skin in addition because of inflammation
irritation wind dust hitting the eye you can also consider using lubricating eye drops just to add
an extra layer of lubrication and flush any of those inflammatory proteins off of the tear film
those are probably the best things that everybody should be doing just on a regular basis if they're
spending a lot of time outside or in dusty windy environments if for some reason a pinguecula or a
pterygium becomes inflamed and aggravated your eye doctor may be able to prescribe a topical
anti-inflammatory eye drop such as a steroid to help calm things down and if something like
that happens it usually calms down over just a couple of weeks now with the pinguecula because
it doesn't obstruct your vision and doesn't really interfere with how the eyes function
it's really not too big of a deal but if somebody does want to get rid of them because they're
unsightly they don't like how they look on the eye then they can be surgically removed but that's
usually not considered a medical necessity it's all considered kind of an out-of-pocket
cosmetic procedure however for pterygiums because a pterygium can progress across the eye induce
really irregular astigmatism and cause blurred vision and unstable vision that can require
surgical removal surgery to remove pterygiums is usually not too complicated but there is always
that risk that they could come back so it's often times your doctor will continue to recommend uv
light protecting sunglasses lubrication they may even recommend other prescription eye
drops to help slow things down to prevent it from coming back no matter what if you do have further
questions about either a pinguecula or pterygium or anything else about the eyes certainly let
me know in the comments section otherwise if you think you have either of these and you're
having issues definitely contact a local eye care provider near you now because uv light exposure
does contribute to development of these when you are wearing sunglasses just a pro tip is to look
on the side of the sunglasses to make sure that it says that it has full uv light protection in
it or uv400 if you're not sure of like good brands of sunglasses to look for i do have other videos
going over reviews about sunglasses you can check that out over here if you want a little bit more
otherwise i hope this video helped you out if it did smash the like button subscribe if you're new
otherwise again dr allen here keep an eye on it and we'll talk to you soon you