I Caught the Red-Eye… and It Wasn’t a Flight

The Strange Story Behind My Recurrent Subconjunctival Hemorrhage (or That Terrifying “Burst Blood Vessel in the Eye”)

It was a Tuesday morning.

I had just returned home from a brisk walk to the local cemetery. Before brewing coffee, I retreated to the bathroom, and when I glanced in the mirror, I almost passed out.

The white of my left eye was completely red.

Not a little pink. Not “maybe I didn’t sleep well” red. And not even irritated from the wind and smoke and pollen around here kind of red.

I mean crime-scene or knocked out boxer red. The kind of red that causes your mind to immediately start cranking out terrifying words like stroke, aneurysm, emergency room, threatening to wreck my day before it had barely begun.

Naturally, I did what any modern person does when their body suddenly does something horrifying. I sought the advice of Dr. Google.

Only after wading through the usual warnings, disclaimers, and enough alarming stories to make my heart pound harder did I land upon the conclusion that I had a subconjunctival hemorrhage.

In normal human language that a nine-year-old could understand, that means a tiny blood vessel under the surface of the eye has ruptured. People often call it a burst blood vessel in the eye, which is exactly what it looks like.

The weird thing about a subconjunctival hemorrhage is that it looks absolutely hideous but often feels like almost nothing at all. No pain or vision changes, just your eye suddenly deciding to become a Halloween costume accessory.

Most of the reputable sites on the internet offered reassurance, asserting that the condition is benign, but immediately added:

“But recurrent episodes can sometimes be linked to high blood pressure, diabetes, bleeding disorders, or other medical issues.”

Thanks, Dr. Google, for the comfort.

The Pattern in the Mirror

This wasn’t my first encounter with the red-eye phenomenon. It had happened twice before, back in my twenties.

At the time, because I was young and invulnerable, I dismissed it. A random broken blood vessel in the eye. Probably nothing. Maybe I sneezed too hard or had been crying too hard, which I often did back in those days. My capillaries had been serving me well, and I had no reason to doubt they would continue to do their job. Plus, my dad saw it and wasn’t impressed, which was the final verdict as far as I was concerned.

Fast forward to the afternoon following the gruesome discovery last summer, when I was still hiding behind sunglasses while out and about so I wouldn’t scare away strangers. Something occurred to me.

Both times it happened in my twenties?

I had just painted my fingernails.

Interesting.

I quit using nail polish some time ago. It just wasn’t worth it to me anymore, mainly because I didn’t have the patience to wait for it to dry. Every now and then I would purchase a bottle, only to have it grow thick and goopy as it vegetated in the drawer under the bathroom sink. But the evening before this latest eye incident, I was inspired to paint my toenails.

I even did it outside on the lawn, because I always hated those noxious fumes.

Which were still awful.

Even though I was working with toes, which are relatively long-distance, my eyes were burning and tearing up, and they felt irritated long after I had finished. But by the time I went to bed, I had forgotten about it. It was after I looked like I had been in a bar fight that I put the pieces together.

Three episodes over a few decades is not exactly a scientific study. I know that.

But when you have a good memory and notice when your own body repeats a strange little pattern, you take note.

My Completely Unofficial Theory

First, the disclaimer.

I am not a doctor or a scientist. I am just a person who has been very well acquainted with her particular body for a while and has learned to listen to it.

My theory is this:

The nail polish fumes irritate my eyes, and the resulting irritation causes inflammation, which makes the tiny surface blood vessels become more vulnerable.

Then something ordinary happens. A sneeze. A blink. A little eye rubbing. Maybe nothing noticeable at all.

And…

Pop.

A subconjunctival hemorrhage.

Can I prove nail polish caused my burst blood vessel in the eye?

No.

Has medical research established that nail polish fumes are a cause of subconjunctival hemorrhage?

Not that I have found.

But the pattern was strong enough that I decided to run my own experiment and stopped using nail polish completely.

The result?

Over a year. Zero eye hemorrhages.

Not one.

The Clean Beauty Test

I live in a windy area surrounded by farmland. Dust, pollen, and whatever else the universe decides to throw through the air are constant pesky companions that only serve to irritate my eyes and sinuses. So, just as a precaution, I keep ketotifen allergy drops handy, because I’ll do almost anything to avoid an emergency room visit after gazing into the mirror and convincing myself my eyeball is about to engage in spontaneous combustion.

My logic became simple:

The environment sets the stage.

The fumes light the match.

The allergy drops help calm things down.

Almost a year later, curiosity (and vanity) got the better of me.

I wanted to know whether modern “clean beauty” nail polish would make a difference, because supposedly it doesn’t have many of the more toxic ingredients normally found in most nail polish.

I purchased Sally Hansen Good. Kind. Pure. Sixteen-free. Vegan. Plant-based.

Practically carrying a tiny green halo. And less expensive than most of the others.

I sat outside and opened the bottle. Although it had that unmistakable nail polish solvent odor, it wasn’t as bad as the previous products I had used.

A product can leave out certain ingredients and still release fumes. Marketing language describes what is not in the bottle. It does not necessarily describe how your individual body reacts to what is coming out of it.

In any case, my eyes remained clear following that experiment. Was it one of the sinister sixteen chemicals that had been omitted from the new formula that caused my eye to see red the previous summer? Could be. I’d rather not test it.

I do not need a medical degree to notice what my own body seems to tolerate and what it doesn’t. I have the sense and curiosity to tell the difference between a personal observation and a proven fact.

When you search “burst blood vessel in eye” at seven in the morning, most medical articles say roughly the same thing: Don’t panic. It is usually harmless. But if it keeps happening, talk to your doctor. Which is standard and makes sense.

But I never found any content that points to the possibility that substances found in cosmetics or paint and solvents could be complicit. That’s where it helps to add a little common sense.

What I Learned from My Exploding Eye

Pay attention and become an expert on your own body and its quirks and patterns.

Not every pattern means something. Bodies are complicated, and sometimes weird things happen for no obvious reason. But if something keeps happening under similar circumstances, it is worth noticing. And just because something has not been officially declared to be the cause of anything that seems off, if it is harmless to do without it or switch to something different, why not?

And finally…

A subconjunctival hemorrhage looks terrifying. I know mine did.

But if there is no pain and your vision is normal, it is often much less dramatic than it appears. If you have pain, vision changes, repeated unexplained eye bleeding, or other concerning symptoms, that is the time to get medical advice. Sorry, I had to add that.

If this strange little detective story saves someone from having a full meltdown if they look in the mirror and see what appears to be a horror prop staring back at them…

Then the red-eye was worth catching.