Why is it that they tape your eyes closed during surgery?
Why is it that they tape your eyes closed during surgery?
what?I didn't even know they did! OK now I'm curious too.
they always use surgial tape to close your eyes





i guess cause they'd be creeped out if they opened and were looking at them while they were performing on you?
But more than likely it's because they are concerned that liquids/other bad things might get in your eyes.
I've heard a few reasons for it but most are a combination of moisture/protection. Since the eye isn't blinking its difficult to retain moisture and it becomes dry unless taped shut. Also it helps make sure nothing could possibly get in the eye during surgery.
A friend had an incident in surgery where her eyes weren't taped shut and her face was covered with some sort of cloth or towel. Her eyes somehow opened during the surgery and were scratched by the towel. She isn't aware if she came to or they just opened naturally. Either way, when she awoke in recovery she flipped out because both of her eyes were covered and taped with gauze preventing her from seeing anything. They healed eventually but that would be a very rude awakening so to speak.
Last edited by AmazingKat; 04-17-2008 at 04:42 PM. Reason: spellins
I didn't know they did that either.
I worked with animals under anesthesia and we lubricated the eyes. Since you're not blinking there needs to be moisture there. Also, we couldn't tape eyes, because in animals, you use the eye placement (amongst other ways) to tell how deep in anesthesia they were.
They do this particularly in longer surgeries so your corneas don't dry out. Your blinking mechanism spreads your tears (natural lubricant) around. When you are under anesthesia, no blinking, and strangely, a lot of people don't close their eyes fully when they are out. Thus, the anesthesiologist will usually add a little bit of eye lubricant to each eye and tape them shut. If not, dry corneas lead to some pretty painful corneal abrasions and ulcers.
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