Several days ago, I felt not well and mustiness, I thought it just a cold, but today, when I look myself in the mirror and find there is something wrong with my eyes. I had pink eye! At first, I put over the counter drops in them, it would go away. But as I stopped the drops and it came back again. Finally, I had to go to see the doctor and they gave me an antibiotic eye drop.

It sounds like Conjunctivitis which is basically allergies and cold in the eyes, my doctors analyze. It is still however, contagious like any other cold and runny nose would be. Really encourage them to wash their hands and try to keep them away from their eyes. Claritin works great to clear up these symptoms…if it persists for more than a couple days then take them to the doctor.

Here’s a home remedy: Make a cup of black tea, using a teabag, not loose stuff.

Remove the teabag from the cup (before you add milk & sugar!). Squeeze it out as much as you can. When the bag is cooled a little, but still warm, put the warm, wet teabag on your eye. You can keep it in place with a piece of sugar, or lie down to keep it on the eye. Wash those hands to prevent contamination! Keep the bag on the eye until it gets cold, or at least 15 minutes. Do this 2-3 times a day.

You can drink the tea, or toss it, what ever. I don’t know why this works, but it helped me several times when I was without health insurance!

Treatment and management

Conjunctivitis sometimes requires medical attention. The appropriate treatment depends on the cause of the problem. For the allergic type, cool water constricts capillaries, and artificial tears sometimes relieve discomfort in mild cases. In more severe cases, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications and antihistamines may be prescribed. Some patients with persistent allergic conjunctivitis may also require topical steroid drops.

Conjunctivitis due to burns, toxic and chemical require careful wash-out with saline, especially beneath the lids, and may require topical steroids. The more acute chemical injuries are medical emergencies, particularly alkali burns, which can lead to severe scarring, and intraocular damage. Fortunately, such injuries are uncommon.

Conjunctivitis has various symptoms such as pink eye, burning, stinging, irritation and pain, among which pink eye is the most obvious and common one. As a result, conjunctivitis is always called pink eye for short. Pink eye can occur in both the young and adults. Contagious pink eye spread through coughing, sneezing, communal settings etc… Frequent hand washing and disinfected spray are some of the common treatments. With timely treatment, most types of pink eye can be cured, while untreated persistent pink eye can lead to as serious as vision loss.

The eye’s pink appearance comes from the sclera’s inflammation, which triggers those conjunctival blood vessels to dilate. As mentioned before, pink eye is only one of the symptoms and different symptoms indicate different types of conjunctivitis, such as allergic conjunctivitis, bacteria conjunctivitis and viral conjunctivitis. Usually, itching, redness, tearing result from allergic conjunctivitis, while heavy discharge belongs to bacteria conjunctivitis and watering discharge results from viral conjunctivitis. Based on those different symptoms and their progression, your doctor can easily determine the type of conjunctivitis you have.

Pink eye occurs mostly in children, especially new born babies. Children always have much colds and respiratory tract infections, which spread the disease. For new born babies, there are even more risks of pink eyes. The contact with its mother may cause bacterial infections and the sexually transmitted disease on its mother can also bring infection to the children. For prior protection, silver nitrate and antibiotic ointment are always used to prevent any infection. Unfortunately, this treatment is ineffective for chlamydial conjunctivitis.

Pink eye can be caused by many other reasons. Improper handling of contact lenses may bring infection and pink eye is caused. Various underlying diseases with inflammation also contribute to pink eye, such as Blepharitis, dry eye, Lyme disease, Reiter’s syndrome and so on. Once these diseases are cured, pink eye will disappear on its own.

The treatment of pink eye is always in accordance with its cause. Bacterial conjunctivitis requires antibiotic eye ointment or drops, while allergic conjunctivitis should be treated with artificial tears to dilute irritating allergens. Viral conjunctivitis always clears up on its own without external intervention.

Contagious types of conjunctivitis are easy to spread through many channels, so that the prevention of the disease is essential. For viral and bacterial conjunctivitis prevention, contaminated hand towels, washcloths, pillowcases, eye drops and eye shadow should never be shared. People with these types of conjunctivitis should wash hands frequently and protect the unaffected eye.

Allergic conjunctivitis is not contagious, which is easier to avoid. People should keep away potential allergens such as airborne pollen, smoke, chemicals etc… Swimming goggles are effective to protect you from allergic conjunctivitis while you are swimming.

For contact lenses wearers, there are more things can be done to prevent pink eye. They should always clean and disinfect their lenses and replace lenses solution to avoid bacterial contamination. Extended wear lenses are more likely to bring infection, so that you should replace them periodically. Wearers can switch to another type of contact lenses if the current type causes pink eye.