Bye Bye Red Eye 

Pink eye, allergy eyes, goopy eyes, watery eyes, dry eyes, itchy eyes, the list goes on...

Whatever’s ailing you, if it has to do with your eyes you want it to go away, and you should take it seriously. No matter what the cause is, your eye only has a limited number of responses. It gets red. It releases discharge. It hurts.

Only a doctor can determine what the causes for redness, discharge or pain may be.

The eye doctors at Parmer Eye Care are Therapeutic Optometrists, which means they have been trained and licensed in diagnosing and treating eye problems.

Some of the more common causes of red, goopy or uncomfortable eyes include dryness, allergies, foreign objects in the eye, and surface infections. Less common but more serious causes include infection or inflammation of the inside of the eye, corneal ulcers, chemical burns and chronic conditions.

Dryness
If dryness is the cause, we can treat that, possibly in other ways besides just eye drops. There are dry eye treatments which are permanent and don’t require the constant instillation of eye drops you may be using now. We would be happy to discuss treatment options with you.

Allergies
If allergies are the cause, there are some extremely effective allergy eye drops available only by prescription which work much better than the over-the-counter drops you may have tried. We can help determine if allergy is really the cause of your red eyes or if it’s something else.
Foreign Object
If you’ve got something in your eye, your doctor here will use a powerful biomicroscope to find and remove that little piece of debris before it causes an infection or even starts to rust if it is metal. Metal foreign bodies can start to rust in a matter of hours, so get it looked at right away! If it’s still bothering you after irrigating your eye, don’t waste time! Call your eye doctor right away.

Infection
If an infection is the cause, your doctor at Parmer Eye Care will again use the biomicroscope and/or other tools to try to determine whether it is a virus, a bacteria, a fungus or something else, and treat it accordingly. Not all infections should be treated the same way. Some medications which are used for certain conditions may actually make other conditions worse. So throw away that bottle of drops that is still sitting in your medicine cabinet from the last time you needed a prescription for a red eye. Don’t be tempted to use it again without checking with your doctor, because there may be a different cause the next time and you could do more harm than good.

Contact our office today if you suspect any problem with your eye. Don’t wait until next week when your work schedule is less hectic, or to see if it will go away. Your eye may not wait. Some conditions can get very serious very quickly.

If you’ve gotten a chemical in your eye, the first thing you should do, before even calling the doctor (unless someone else can call the doctor at the same time) is to liberally irrigate the eye with clean water or saline solution if available. Ideally, run a constant stream of water on the eye for at least 15 to 30 minutes while someone else calls the doctor. Do NOT use acidic solutions to neutrallize alkalies or vice versa. Contact our office or the emergency room immediately.

Many serious and sight-threatening conditions can masquerade as “just pink eye”, so any time you suspect something is wrong, call our office at (512) 339-2020 and have it checked by a doctor.