💦Why does a person's eyes hurt in water?💦
Channel: Why is that
Date: 2021-04-14

Why does a person's eyes hurt in water?

From pressure or from salt.

The internal fluids of the human body have a salinity of about 0.9%. This is close to the salinity of estuaries and heavily desalinated seas. But just because of this, in fresh water, salt is quickly washed out of the protective mucus, and a fairly high osmotic pressure is created on the cells of the eye mucosa. It feels like a cut.

In seawater, on the contrary, the mucus loses water, but this loss is partially compensated by the lacrimal glands. Therefore, the pain in the eyes from sea water is usually weaker. And yet water with very high salinity (such as the Dead Sea) can cause severe pain in the eyes and even damage them.