Busy Philipps ended up in the ER after experiencing pain that felt like “shards of glass” in her eyes after a photo shoot.
The actress, 38, documented her experience on her Instagram Story on Monday, March 19, explaining to her followers that she thought she was “having some sort of crazy allergic reaction.”
She explained that she was out to dinner after a photo shoot that ran from 8:30 a.m. till 6 p.m. and was holding napkins dipped in water to her eyes “because I can’t see straight.” After getting home and taking suggestions from fans that saw her downing Zyrtec and Benadryl, she felt no better, explaining that she was going to try to lie down but “when I close my eyes, it feels like there are shards of glass inside my eyeballs.”
She later posted a photo from the ER, holding her hand to her head as she sat on a bed and another showing a doctor examining her eyes, revealing the cause of her pain wasn’t allergies at all.
“Spent last night at Cedars after I couldn’t sleep because it felt like there were shards of glass in both my eyes,” she wrote. “I have Photo Keratitis from bright lights/sun exposure! WHO EVEN KNEW THAT WAS A THING?”
Photokeratitis happens when ultraviolet rays from the sun affect the corneas of the eyes. It causes pain, intense tears, sensitivity to bright light and constricted pupils and can happen when sun is reflected off sea or sand, or from snow or ice (it’s called snow blindness when that occurs).
In another Instagram Story video Philipps explained that she ended up spending four hours in the ER. “I sunburned my eyes from my photo shoot today,” she said. “I was just saying though it’s so on-brand I get one big magazine cover and I do one photo shoot and I burn my eyeballs … You gotta be careful when you’re on photo shoots or on yachts.”
Philipps said that the condition is common among people with blue eyes, and CNN anchor Anderson Cooper was affected by it. he ended up with a bandaged eye and went blind for 36 hours after spending hours on a sunny yacht in Portugal in 2012.