Can The Cornea Feel Pain?

What’s a quick way to give yourself a bad day? Scratch the eye.

Anyone who has ever scratched their eye before can relate. Having a scratch on the cornea of the eye is painful!

So yeah, the cornea can definitely feel pain. It can feel a LOT of pain.

In fact, the cornea is the most sensitive structure in the human body. The cornea is filled with tiny nerves. And all for the purpose of trying to prevent us from injuring the cornea.

Why The Cornea Is So Sensitive

The cornea is one cool structure. Being transparent, it is able to allow light to focus right on through and give us good vision.

This transparent structure is formed by tightly organized collagen fibers. These collagen fibers give the cornea strength, but because they are so organized, they don’t block light.

But, if the collagen fibers become disorganized, the cornea loses its transparency. What is one way these collagen fibers can become disorganized? An injury that leads to scarring.

During scarring, collagen fibers are formed in every which way direction. The goal really is to just seal up the injury. While this is great to heal up an injury very quickly, it is less helpful in the cornea when the goal is to stay transparent.

So, if we were constantly injuring the cornea over and over again, we would quickly lose vision due to repeated scarring. That’s bad.

So to prevent that from happening, injuries to the cornea are made VERY painful. To try to protect us from ourselves.

Why We Aren’t In Constant Pain

There is one key thing which prevents the cornea from being a constant source of angst in our life. On the very surface of the cornea is a thin layer of cells called epithelium. These cells serves as the skin for the cornea. This prevents all the nerves in the cornea from being exposed to the outside environment and sending pain signals to our brain.

And it works well. When intact, our eye is comfortable.

It is only when this layer becomes damaged - such as a scratch on the eye that we feel pain.

But a scratch isn’t the only thing which can cause pain. When this epithelium breaks down due to conditions such as dry eye disease, it again leads to discomfort and commonly the feeling like there is something in the eye.

Keeping the epithelium healthy is the key to keeping the cornea comfortable.

If The Cornea Has Pain

But if you do have a scratch or abrasion on the cornea, you must simply wait it out. Fortunately, a scratch on the eye can take as little as 24 hours to heal for the smaller ones. Check out How Long Does A Scratched Eye Take To Heal? on EyeMountain.com to learn just how long it will take

With large scratches, it is important to protect the eye with an antibiotic to prevent an infection from developing. Infections are a very big cause for scarring and the biggest concern with scratches. In addition to preventing an infection, the antibiotic can come in an ointment form. Having an ointment on the eye acts like an artificial barrier to prevent those cornea nerves from being exposed. That means less pain!

So, if you scratch your eye, it’s important to visit your eye doctor if it isn’t resolving quickly to make sure that it heals appropriately.

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