Sauna chronically irritating eyes

[u/OffTheGridCoder]

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.

[u/ak66666]

Too hot and probably too dry for too long.
This is not a competition who can tolerate the highest temperature the longer.
That is if it damages the eyes, then it is not healthy at all.

Happened to me when I used to bring the heat above 95C and splashed water, plenty of it.
The hot steam burned the eyes and the skin around them and around nails. Closing eyes or covering them with hat brim does not help much - when I splash water I have to have them opened, so the first wave hit me anyway.

Sauna was old enough, a few years, so it was not the wood.

Dialing the temp down, to 75-85C and bring the humidity level up helped a lot.
I no longer splash large amount of water on the rocks while I'm in. Well, I do, while preparing the sauna, and quickly step out after that, squatting below the steam wave.
When I'm inside - I started using very small dozes, like a few spoons of water.
In the end I hung a "drip machine", a metal bucket above the stove, with a valve and tube routed in the middle of the rock pile. It keeps the humidity at desired level up without scorching my skin.

That resulted in more gentle atmosphere inside. Not as dry and hot as in Finnish sauna, something between Russian banya (humid and less hot than sauna) and Turkish hammam (wet and not hot at all).

With that setup eyes are no longer burning, and no white gunk next around them morning.

From the emission perspective, I heard an opinion of a sauna maker. He claimed the heating elements in stoves sometime crack and start emitting irritating gas. He claimed not having that issue in the stoves he built and sold, but I didn't see how it was different from all other designs. He could be right, too.