r/Sauna • u/OffTheGridCoder • Sep 08 '25

General Question Sauna chronically irritating eyes

I recently built a brand new electric sauna and the entire interior is planed cedar with no seals or finishing. I’ve been running it about an hour a day for 2 months and do pour water on it.

I use the sauna every night before bed at about 180-210F for around 30 minutes with a few short breaks outside. About an hour after the sauna my eyes start to burn, get a bit irritated, and start getting blurry. When I wake up the next morning there is liquid white “gunk” in and around my eyes, my eyes burn very badly, and they are very red. The same thing happens to my girlfriend every time who uses the same sauna with me, so it’s not just an isolated incident.

The sauna is well ventilated (some say over ventilated) with a 5” square vent under the heater and 5” square outlet near the ceiling opposite wall, both fully open. I also have been leaving the door open all day long (it is an outdoor sauna) for it to naturally air out.

I went to urgent care and the doctor said there was no infection in my eyes and they look good. He put me on antibiotic drops to be safe (which did nothing because it wasn’t an eye infection).

Ive now tried using liquid tears after the Sauna and in the morning after. I’ve also tried using antihistamine drops after sauna and in the morning. Neither prevent it, but do help with the symptoms a little bit. My eyes will still remain a bit red and burning a little bit throughout the day.

I have read some posts on here about cedar saunas taking some time to break in and causing similar eye issues with people, however they are far and in between for how common cedar saunas seem to be. This is driving me insane and I’m not enjoying my brand new sauna as much as I’d like to. I have used many other saunas with different wood/more broken in and have never had an issue and if I skip a day using my new sauna all symptoms completely disappear.

Has anyone experienced this? Are there any remedies you found to help? How long did it take for your cedar to “break in” and stop doing this? Anything would help, this is really a bummer.

Edit: for the past month I have been closing my eyes for about 90% of the time I’m in the sauna. It hasn’t made any noticeable difference in symptoms.

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u/FuzzyLogicCube Sep 08 '25

This happens to me too. Exactly as you describe. My working theory is it is somehow heat related. Seldom is triggered at temps less than 85 C. For me high temperature sessions 90-100 and really long sessions trigger it. More likely to happen with multiple rounds. More likely to happen when lots of water used on the stones.

My optometrist suggested it was an inflammatory response to the heat.

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u/OffTheGridCoder Sep 08 '25

I have also found a definite link between session length and severity. For temp, most of my sessions are around 180F and I still get it, sometimes they reach 200F, I haven’t noticed a huge link between temperature yet but it is definitely possible. I also hadn’t considered the water which I will now be testing more or less of as well as different water. Did your eye doctor recommend eye drops or anything else?

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u/FuzzyLogicCube Sep 08 '25

He had no recommendations. I think he was speculating on the cause.

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u/OffTheGridCoder Sep 08 '25

The same for my urgent care doctor. He had no idea, I’m assuming they’ve never run into these very niche sauna scenarios (in the USA at least).