While chopping onions for chili earlier this evening, I had occasion to wonder: If you ignore the pain and burning in your eyes while you’re chopping onions, and continue to just stand there blithely chopping away in the midst of the onion fumes, can you actually do any serious damage to your eyes? At times the pain gets so bad that I have to go in the other room for a second, then come back. What if I didn’t do that? Would any harm result? I’m guessing not, because your eyes are watering so much that they’re flushing any toxins out, but I’m curious.
I don’t know the answer to your question, but I do have some advice. I used to get my diving mask out, whenever I had to chop onions and feel like a complete idiot. Some gorgeous person then suggested something which changed my onion-chopping life…
drum roll please…
Keep onions in the fridge, or at least chuck them in the freezer for an hour before you cut. The fumes don’t seem a problem then (maybe the fumes are frozen!) 
hope that helps, even though it makes this thread sound more like a helpful hints column in a tacky magazine… 
I really doubt it. I managed to get onion juice in my eye once and while it hurt like you wouldn’t believe it didn’t seem to do any perminate damage.
A good cry is always a benefit. The tears clean out the eyes, all the appropriate body openings get a nice wash, and there’s something satisfying about recovering from it afterwards.
I always feel a little happier after an “onion cry” probably because of the association of tears drying with "looking on the bright side, feeling better, whatever. I wouldn’t be astounded if there was an endorphin connection.
Plus it is a never-failing source of merriment for you and other household members when they come upon you talking normally of everyday things with tears streaming down your face. A long-time joke in the Redboss family.
Redboss
A Google search found this:
Don’t freeze fresh food! Yes, it works, but it changes the flavor. I used to use swim goggles. Now, I use a really sharp knife, and that works really well in all respects.
hehehe, I’m not the only one !
Did you have to put up with everyone laughing at you, too ???
An inexpensive food processor seems to work really well. The onions are nice and consistent, and no more tears! FAST, too.
The fumes from the onion mixing with the liquid in your eye forms a weak solution of sulfuric acid…
FYI
IQF (individually Quick Frozen??) onions are awesome. And CHEAP.
It is a very good question. I hope someone can get the right answer. You would think it COULD do harm. I mean it is like hitting yourself with a hammer.
The pain tells you to STOP IT. So the tears are nature’s way of saying STOP IT. Something is off.
No.
Oh, onions again…
Hey, you know I saw a cook on tv he said that if you use a candle next to the onion the vapors from it neutralize the onion vapors.
Since we’re on onions I have a question: any Dopers who had laser surgery, can you now feel the onion vapors?
I used to wear glasses and contacts, and I never had a problem with cutting onions. In the back of my mind I’d always say “What are they whining about, this is nothing…” But since the surgery, I now know what everyone is complaining about! The stinging, the tearing, the uneasy sense that “if I stand any closer my eyeballs are going to MELT!”
I tried webmd.com to see if it has an answer for this question, but didn’t get one, but I did find lots of recipes.