Dylan Murray
A TikToker was left horrified after discovering she was crying bright yellow tears, but it turns out there's a reasonable explanation behind the bizarre phenomenon.
While generally uncommon, tears can come out in various kinds of colors depending on what is going on within your tear ducts.
However, because most people are used to their tears being clear, it can be quite frightening and confusing when you notice tears with an unusual hue streaming down your face.
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This much was the case for TikToker @urfavcolouredgirl when she noticed yellow tears coming out of her eyes as she recorded a video, leading her to become highly concerned about the health of her eyes.
Others in the comments shared these sentiments, noting that they’d be terrified if the same thing happened to them seemingly out of nowhere.
“I’d start crying even more,” said one commenter, while another admitted: “I would be in full panic mode ngl.”
But, it turns out there are several reasons you can ending up crying yellow tears, and some are more common than you think.
One such cause is an excess amount of natural oil in your tear ducts.
These oils being present in a person’s tear ducts is natural, but if your body produces an excessive amount of it, tears could come out yellow and, unsurprisingly, oily. Despite being irregular, this is not considered dangerous unless it persists for a long period of time.
Another cause of having yellow tears is that you may have some sort of eye infection. Pus or irritation can lead to yellow tears, though since the yellow tears are likely to be accompanied by other symptoms, the tears on their own are unlikely to be the only thing you notice when it comes to your eye health in this scenario.
Lastly, people in the aforementioned TikToker’s comment section noted a potential third reason why a person’s tears might be yellow, and it’s not one you might expect.
One commenter explained: “It basically means that when you went to the eye doctor, they checked your eye and they put some type of yellow dye in your eyes and then you cry yellow.”
Another specified what specific treatment at the eye doctor does this. “Did you recently get your eyes examined with Fluorescein?” the commenter asked, “If so it’s ok.”