If you couldn't blink...

buz · Oct 3, 2012

So let's say that you have been deprived of the ability to blink. You also cannot move any other body parts, so you can't move your eyelids manually, and you can't wet your eyes with artificial tears or anything like that. No one's going to help you with it, either.

What happens? Besides horrible discomfort and pain and general sucking in that department...

How long until it does permanent damage? How fast would it destroy your vision, and by what mechanism (just the dryness, or is it from infection of crap getting in your eyes and scratching up your visionz)? And...you know, other things.

It's going to be a short-term state for the character, but I need her to see most of what's going on (blurry or not), so I'm wondering how short it has to be...

(She's not human, just humanoid, so there's some leeway there, but I'd like it to not be totally ridiculous.)

IAMWRITER · Oct 3, 2012

I'm pretty sure blinking keeps your eyes moist, so I'd imagine that if you couldn't blink, your eyes would dry up and be very itchy.

Hope this helps.

Torgo · Oct 3, 2012

Certain medical conditions - Bell's Palsy is one - can cause paralysis of the eyelid muscles, and if you don't keep your eyes moist (and tape your eyes shut at night) the end result is damage to the cornea. I don't, though, know exactly how or how quickly - I think Dr Google will be able to give you some idea. Maybe here?

anguswalker · Oct 3, 2012

I replied to this, I'm sure, but it ain't there. Ah well. Anyway, the gist is that I was pointing out what an absolute sadist you are...

I doubt if you will get much useful information from real life to explain what would happen, since if a patient can't blink/can't produce lachrymal fluid, normally somebody does something about it. Of course that means you get a bit more freedom to decide what your character experiences without as much fear of contradiction. The possibilities though would, I think, be as follows (I just hope to God no-one experiments to find out for sure):

1) The conjunctiva dries out and dies off. This would presumably cause some blurring/obstruction of vision. How long it took would depend on the relative humidity of the atmosphere. In a steamy, tropical atmosphere it probably never would.

2) If 1) happened then eventually (maybe) the cornea would also dry out and start going opaque and/or shrinking. This would lead to pretty serious vision loss but I'm guessing that unless the air was super-dry it would take ages. How long would ox eyes take to dry out? Not sure. Maybe you could try that without being arrested.

3) The surface of the eye is covered in dust & grime. This would take ages to have much effect on vision, unless it was very dusty there.

4) Some nasty bacteria gains a foothold and causes inflammation of the conjunctiva, then the cornea, then the rest of the eye. Pretty likely that one, since the anterior structures of the eye have very little blood supply and thus very weak defence against infection. Normally it is the lachrymal fluid and the physical action of the eyelid that removes bacteria. Still, it could easily happen to one eye and not the other, so your humanoid could have one eyeball rotting away in a stinking ooze of pus and STILL be able to see clearly out of the other eye. Lucky humanoid.

So, as I say, I reckon you could get away with pretty much anything that suits your plot.

Doesn't change the fact that you are one sick individual though...

buz · Oct 3, 2012

Well. All that works fine

Thank you guys!

anguswalker said:
I replied to this, I'm sure, but it ain't there. Ah well. Anyway, the gist is that I was pointing out what an absolute sadist you are...

Well...yeah, I guess I can't argue with that. But I'm a very nice sadist. I give to charity and even do the dishes and stuff.

Thank you for the thorough response to this sick individual

Much appreciated!

thothguard51 · Oct 3, 2012

buzhidao said:
So let's say that you have been deprived of the ability to blink. You also cannot move any other body parts, so you can't move your eyelids manually, and you can't wet your eyes with artificial tears or anything like that. No one's going to help you with it, either.

What happens? Besides horrible discomfort and pain and general sucking in that department...

How long until it does permanent damage? How fast would it destroy your vision, and by what mechanism (just the dryness, or is it from infection of crap getting in your eyes and scratching up your visions)? And...you know, other things.

It's going to be a short-term state for the character, but I need her to see most of what's going on (blurry or not), so I'm wondering how short it has to be... (She's not human, just humanoid, so there's some leeway there, but I'd like it to not be totally ridiculous.)

You say the paralysis is only temporary and there is no one to help your character? How long is temporary?

Well if only for a day or two then the discomfort is only going to be temporary, unless the character is laying out in direct sunlight and then her eyes would dry and burn. As would her lips, tip of her nose, and cheeks. Ears too if her hair is not covering them. A real, real, bad case of sunburn...

Of course, all of this will depend on how different the characters humanoid characteristics are compared to humans.

buz · Oct 3, 2012

thothguard51 said:
You say the paralysis is only temporary and there is no one to help your character? How long is temporary?

Well if only for a day or two then the discomfort is only going to be temporary, unless the character is laying out in direct sunlight and then her eyes would dry and burn. As would her lips, tip of her nose, and cheeks. Ears too if her hair is not covering them. A real, real, bad case of sunburn...

Of course, all of this will depend on how different the characters humanoid characteristics are compared to humans.

Ah...well.

I'm talking either hours or maybe a day--I'll figure it out when I write that specific bit.

She's in hell, so there's no sun...but it's rather hot...

LBlankenship · Oct 3, 2012

FWIW, I have chronically dry eyes thanks to Sjogren's Syndrome. It's not the same as not blinking for hours, but it might be the closest you'll get.

I've had it for years, so I'm used to my eyes always feeling kind of dry, but it's worst first thing in the morning. When you sleep, you see, tear production drops because your eyes are closed. For me, that means it drops off to hardly anything and my eyes feel like sandpaper no matter how long they've been closed.

But here's the interesting part. As soon as I wake up, the extra-dryness seems to kick tear production into "high gear" -- or what passes for high gear for me.

I don't know for sure, but I suspect your character's eyes might start to tear up in an attempt to compensate for not blinking. And they will if dust and such get in.

Just a thought.

Mac H. · Oct 3, 2012

You'd do a lot better than you'd probably think - I read Dr Brand's autobiography a while ago. He was a Doctor who specialised in 3rd World Leprosy ... and discovered that the reason that many lepers went blind is that they didn't blink. (If you happen to lose sensation in your eyes then you don't feel the 'need' to blink)

His treatment was effective - surgery so that whenever the patient moved their jaw they automatically blinked too ... which meant that they blinked at least when they were eating.

It turns out that they didn't get 'noticeable' damage for a few months after they stopped blinking. The pain & discomfort sets in a lot earlier than the damage. (Which is a good design!)

He was also the one who figured out why lepers in 3rd world countries would literally lose their toes and fingers overnight - even though the fingers and/or toes weren't badly damaged. (Hint: The fix was to ensure that every person with leprosy was given a cat - they had to sleep in the same room as the cat every night)

Mac

Nekko · Oct 3, 2012

Okay Buzhidao so now I'm curious to read some of this story.

buz · Oct 4, 2012

LBlankenship said:
FWIW, I have chronically dry eyes thanks to Sjogren's Syndrome. It's not the same as not blinking for hours, but it might be the closest you'll get.

I've had it for years, so I'm used to my eyes always feeling kind of dry, but it's worst first thing in the morning. When you sleep, you see, tear production drops because your eyes are closed. For me, that means it drops off to hardly anything and my eyes feel like sandpaper no matter how long they've been closed.

But here's the interesting part. As soon as I wake up, the extra-dryness seems to kick tear production into "high gear" -- or what passes for high gear for me.

I don't know for sure, but I suspect your character's eyes might start to tear up in an attempt to compensate for not blinking. And they will if dust and such get in.

Just a thought.

My sympathies...that must be obnoxious. I've had my share of intermittent eye problems and when they flare up it drives me crazy. I went through months where I'd wake up with my eyes thoroughly glued together (from all the extra eye boogers, y'know)...eventually I kept a cup of water by the bed for the express purpose of loosening up the eyelids before trying to rip them open manually

It must suck something powerful.

...Totally irrelevant. Anyway.

Thank you for that--quite true. I did read that there would be more tear production (or...wateriness) but, cruelly, it would do nothing to moisten the eyes, because without blinking, it doesn't effectively spread across the eyeballs...I thought that was a nice touch of double-torture :evil

Mac H. said:
You'd do a lot better than you'd probably think - I read Dr Brand's autobiography a while ago. He was a Doctor who specialised in 3rd World Leprosy ... and discovered that the reason that many lepers went blind is that they didn't blink. (If you happen to lose sensation in your eyes then you don't feel the 'need' to blink)

His treatment was effective - surgery so that whenever the patient moved their jaw they automatically blinked too ... which meant that they blinked at least when they were eating.

It turns out that they didn't get 'noticeable' damage for a few months after they stopped blinking. The pain & discomfort sets in a lot earlier than the damage. (Which is a good design!)

He was also the one who figured out why lepers in 3rd world countries would literally lose their toes and fingers overnight - even though the fingers and/or toes weren't badly damaged. (Hint: The fix was to ensure that every person with leprosy was given a cat - they had to sleep in the same room as the cat every night)

Mac

Very interesting...now I want to read this

But, good to know. I'd like her not to go blind, so non-damaging pain/discomfort is good

Nekko said:
Okay Buzhidao so now I'm curious to read some of this story.

That's all it takes, hm?

I didn't even say anything about the part where the demons throw flaming undead platypuses at her... :evil

Thanks all! You've been extremely helpful

shaldna · Oct 4, 2012

buzhidao said:
Ah...well. I'm talking either hours or maybe a day--I'll figure it out when I write that specific bit.

She's in hell, so there's no sun...but it's rather hot...

If it's only a day she'd probably be uncomfortable and sore, and her eyes might be itchy and sore for a couple of days.

My daughter sleeps with her eyes open and sometimes her eyes get very strained and sore and red, but nto always.

StormChord · Oct 5, 2012

In general, after a few minutes eyes start to sting; hours or a day are unlikely to result in physical damage, but they'd probably hurt like nobody's business for quite a while.

If you couldn't blink...

buz

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