Anderson Cooper sheds light on sunburned eyes

Yes, you can burn your eyeballs - or more accurately, your corneas.

That's apparently what happened to CNN newsman Anderson Cooper, who talked about the experience on his talk show Tuesday. He says he spent two hours on a boat in Portugal without sunglasses - and ended up "blind for 36 hours."

"I wake up in the middle of the night and it feels like my eyes are on fire, my eyeballs, and I think oh maybe I have sand in my eyes or something. I douse my eyes with water. Anyway, it turns out I have sunburned my eyeballs," he said on Anderson Live. "I had no idea you could do this."

STORY: Anderson Cooper: Blinded by the light

Doctors say it's clear that Cooper had a case of photokeratitis - which skiers know as snow blindness. It happens when intense ultraviolet (UV) light, often reflected off water, sand or snow, burns the cornea, the transparent dome-shaped window covering the front of the eye. It's also a hazard in tanning booths. Welders get a version called arc eye.

"I see it in people out all day at the Jersey Shore," says Anne Sumers, an ophthalmologist in Ridgeway, N.J., and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology. It usually starts a few hours after people come in from the sun, she says.

The condition does not actually cause blindness, but "it's so painful that people feel they can't open their eyes," she says.

Other symptoms can include a feeling of grit in the eyes and vision that is mildly to severely blurred, s says Fraser Horn, associate dean for academic programs at the Pacific University College of Optometry, Forest Grove, Oregon.

The effects are temporary, much like a sunburn of your skin. "The cornea is very similar to the top layer of our skin," says New York dermatologist Deborah Sarnoff, senior vice president of the Skin Cancer Foundation. "It does have the regenerative ability to come back and make new cells."

Sumers says she gives patients eye drops and advises them to "take it easy in a dark room" for a day or so. She doesn't advise wearing an eye patch -- which Cooper sported in a Twitter picture he circulated..

Most people recover in "two or three days, tops," Horn says: "The cornea is very fast-healing."

But you can avoid the pain -- and also lower your long-term risk for developing cataracts and skin cancer on your eyelids -- by wearing sunglasses that block at least 99% of UV light (both UVA and UVB) and broad-brimmed hats, even when the sun doesn't seem very bright, Sarnoff says.

The American Optometric Association and The American Academy of Ophthalmology have additional tips on keeping your eyes safe in the sun.

USA Today