Most of the sun damage your eyes take doesn’t happen during an eclipse. It happens on ordinary days — driving, fishing on Table Rock, working outside, sitting on a dock in July. UV exposure adds up over years, and by the time it shows up as a cataract or a growth on the surface of the eye, the damage is done.

Here is what actually protects your eyes, year-round.

Choosing sunglasses that actually work

• Look for “100% UV protection” or “UV400” on the label. It needs to block both UV-A and UV-B.
• Darkness and lens color tell you nothing. A very dark lens with no UV filter is worse than no sunglasses at all — it opens your pupil while letting the ultraviolet straight through.
• Price is not a proxy for protection. Inexpensive sunglasses with a proper UV rating beat designer frames without one.
• Wraparound or oversized frames help. Light coming in from the side gets focused onto the inner corner of the eye — which happens to be exactly where growths tend to form.

What UV actually does to eyes

• Cataracts — cumulative, built up over years of exposure.
• Pterygium and pinguecula — growths on the surface of the eye that can start showing up in your twenties. We see more of these in people who work outdoors, which around here means a lot of people.
• Photokeratitis — essentially a sunburn on the cornea, from UV bouncing off water, sand, snow or ice. Painful, and it usually shows up hours later rather than at the time.
• Eye and eyelid cancers — the skin around the eye is thin and often missed by sunscreen.

This is a year-round thing, not a summer thing

Up to about 80% of UV gets through cloud and haze, so a gray January afternoon on the water still calls for sunglasses. Kids need protection too — add a broad-brimmed hat, which cuts a surprising amount on its own. And skip tanning beds: the UV risk to your eyes is as real as the risk to your skin.

What about eclipses?

Eclipse safety is the same principle in a much more concentrated form.

Never look at the sun without a proper solar filter. Sunglasses are nowhere close — safe solar viewers are thousands of times darker. Never look through a camera, phone, binoculars or telescope, even while wearing eclipse glasses; the concentrated light burns straight through the filter.

Two things have changed since the last eclipse most people remember:

• An “ISO 12312-2” label no longer proves a viewer is safe. That is still the correct standard, but counterfeit glasses printed with the branding and artwork of legitimate manufacturers are now widespread. Buy only from a supplier on the American Astronomical Society’s vetted list — don’t just search online and buy whatever comes up first.
• The old “throw them out after three years” and “don’t look for more than three minutes” warnings have been retired. Compliant modern viewers don’t expire on a schedule. Inspect them instead, and discard only if they’re torn, scratched or damaged. Your 2024 glasses are probably fine.

And one local point that most articles get wrong. You will read everywhere that it’s safe to remove your glasses during totality. That is true — but Branson has never been in the path of totality. We were outside it in 2017. In April 2024 we reached 98.8% and still weren’t in it. Here, there is never a moment when it’s safe to look without a filter, and 98.8% still leaves far more than enough light to burn a retina.

For anyone planning ahead: the next solar eclipse visible from the Ozarks is a modest sunrise partial in January 2028, and the next one really worth watching is a deep partial in January 2029. (The August 2026 eclipse in the news isn’t visible from Missouri at all.)

When to call us

If you’ve looked at the sun and now have a blind spot in the center of your vision, distortion, or blurring that isn’t clearing — get seen. Don’t wait it out. There’s no treatment that reverses solar retinopathy, and studies after both recent eclipses found people typically waited a week or two before coming in.

We can take a look and get you to an ophthalmologist the same day if you need one. Call (417) 332-3639.

As always, I hope you stay happy and healthy.

Carolyn Clark, NP-C