What's the matter with my eye?
February 28, 2020 3:38 PM   Subscribe

For the past 4-5 days, my right eye has been tearing up excessively (the left eye is totally fine). When I wake up, the skin around the tear duct and below the eye is a bit swollen, and there's crud on my cheek from where it's leaked overnight. During the day, I wipe away tears every few minutes. Yesterday I took an antihistamine just in case it was allergies; I don't have allergies, and anyway the antihistamine didn't help. In the meanwhile it doesn't seem to be getting better, or worse. There's no pain or discoloration, and I suspect it's my tear duct, not a foreign object in the eye itself. What's going on? What I should do to try to treat it at home? When do I make a doctor's appointment?
posted by tapir-whorf to Health & Fitness (17 answers total)
 
Best answer: With a similar thing a few years ago I was diagnosed with a bacterial infection in the tear duct and given 'eyelid wipes' which are essentially sterile saline wipes. It has recurred occasionally since then, always on the same side. I get the most relief from using a warm compress on that side of my face to soften things up and then deliberatly trying to cry a bit. Another big thing is learning never to wipe my eyes with my hands or anything not sterile.
posted by buildmyworld at 3:42 PM on February 28, 2020 [3 favorites]


Best answer: I would try loosening any tear duct gunk by taking a hot shower and then resting with a warm, damp compress over your eyes. You could also try eye drops meant for styes.
posted by scrubjay at 3:43 PM on February 28, 2020


Response by poster: How does one make a hot compress that's sterile?
posted by tapir-whorf at 4:14 PM on February 28, 2020


A similar condition is blepharitis.
posted by H21 at 4:20 PM on February 28, 2020


Best answer: See a doctor. Your eyes are too precious to experiment upon.
posted by tmdonahue at 4:29 PM on February 28, 2020 [14 favorites]


Best answer: Myself and my daughter have both had this (little DTMFA multiple times because she has one tear duct that used to get easily irritated) and it was caused by a virus. So not bacterial, but viral pinkeye. We were told to let it run its course, and it got better in about a week. Warm water towels & anything similar over the eye helped. There might be some exceptions to this, but my optometrist said that if the increased discharge is watery, like tears/normal sleep discharge, it is viral and your tear duct is irritated or partially blocked. If the discharge is pus-like, yellowish-green, & goopy, then it's bacterial. If it doesn't resolve in a few days, gets worse, or you have any additional symptoms, you should get it checked out.
posted by DTMFA at 4:40 PM on February 28, 2020


Best answer: I’d get it checked out, especially since it’s already been several days and it’s not improving. The same thing happened to me a few years ago and the doctor diagnosed conjunctivitis. I was surprised because I was used to it presenting in other ways but not constant tearing. It cleared up almost immediately with a round of eyedrops.
posted by anderjen at 4:50 PM on February 28, 2020 [4 favorites]


Best answer: At least 5 days of something being decidedly weird and not tapering off is when I have noticed that doctors don't frown at me. Seems like the right amount of time for having given it a chance.
posted by bleep at 5:11 PM on February 28, 2020


For a compress, boil some water and fold a clean washcloth into quarters. Dip the folded corner into boiling water for a few seconds. Hold onto the dry part in your hand while you wait for it to cool from hot to tolerably warm. While this isn’t perfectly sterile, it’s close.
posted by Knowyournuts at 5:39 PM on February 28, 2020 [1 favorite]


nthing the doctor - this could also be conjunctivitis
posted by megan_magnolia at 6:05 PM on February 28, 2020


My doctor recommended standing at the bathroom sink to run warm water into a large clean spoon and submerging my eye to open and close it a few times, then repeating several times with fresh water. It's worked for me, oven on occasions when Polysporin drops haven’t been very effective.
posted by bonobothegreat at 6:20 PM on February 28, 2020


If you are interested in a specialty tool for soaking the eye, a google search for "eye soaking cup" will return some results that will be more tailored to the task than a big spoon for not much money. Looks like they mostly call them eye wash cups.
posted by coppertop at 6:31 PM on February 28, 2020 [1 favorite]


I have seen eye wash cups in drugstores. They were included in a package with eyewash or lens solution.
posted by H21 at 6:44 PM on February 28, 2020


My kid had a blocked tear duct as a baby that did this. They ended up putting in a tube like you do for ear infections for a while.it eventually healed up and stopped
posted by emjaybee at 8:59 PM on February 28, 2020


I had something like this for a couple days and ended up going to the ophthalmologist eventually- turns out my eye just started producing crap tears for some reason (wtf, aging?), and they didn’t stick around like good tears should. I use artificial tears now when it’s bad (there’s some night time gel stuff that’s extra good).

Could be lots of stuff, though, including conjunctivitis (which is what I thought it was) and boy does it suck to pass that between eyes. 4-5 days is about when the medical professional in my life started saying, “You know, you just shouldn’t f*ck around with eyes” and I went in. Might as well unless there’s a really good reason not to.
posted by charmedimsure at 9:06 PM on February 28, 2020 [1 favorite]


Plain dry eye can manifest like that too - meibomian glands get blocked and make a fuss until the blockage goes away. My ophthalmologist recommended just a spoon dipped in boiling water, massage the back side of it against the closed eyelid, so you don't irritate the eye with the texture of cloth but provide the movement needed to shift the blockage. I also had good results with a tiny glass bottle carefully washed and filled with hot water from the tap, then used the same way - it retained heat the best and was very smooth.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 10:51 PM on February 28, 2020 [2 favorites]


Please go to the doctor. I had what I thought was probably conjunctivitis that then developed a couple weird additional symptoms, like constant tearing when exposed to light, and last month I went to the ophthalmologist and it turned out to be a corneal ulcer, which I can now assure you (after a month of extremely hardcore antibiotics on a truly punishing schedule) is not something you want to ever experience in your entire life. Don't be me.
posted by sineala at 7:02 AM on February 29, 2020 [3 favorites]


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