Conjunctivitis - how to care? And should the eyes look bruised?

[Idontwantpinkeye]

Hello!

My 18 month old has been nursing some gunky eyes for the last few days. Overnight it went into overdrive and his eyes were glued shut this morning.

The goo is constant and really yellowy-green.

He also has a snotty nose and cold but no fever.

I’ve been bathing with plain boiled-cooked water but it’s not helping much.

His eyes are also really puffy and so red underneath, like they’re bruised.

Any advice? Will it necessitate a GP appointment for drops, or is it how viral conjunctivitis presents?

If you oh have a pharmacy open near you they may be able to give you the medication.

He needs antibiotic drops at least. From your description I'd be taking him to a gp. Conjunctivitis can be nasty - and painful.

Forgot to add it's also very infectious so you need to be scrupulous about handwashing and separate towels etc.

Thank you both. The bruising is quite pronounced and I’ve not seen that before.

Pharmacies require scripts for under 2s, or I’d have popped along today.

It’s suddenly ramped up so I think he may need a bit of assistance with it.

Good old nursery bugs!

I took a photo and forgot to attach it.

My little one had this recently. He looked awful and had the bruising you describe.

I called GP and they said just to consider wiping with the cooled boiled water and they would clear.

I felt awful as they looked so painful and were clearly bothering him. We managed to get some drops from the pharmacy (just over the counter drops) but he was too distressed for us to get them in his eyes.

Thankfully the GP was right and it did clear up within a week. We just kept constantly wiping them and they eventually cleared.

Good luck OP. It's horrible to see them like that.

Ok it got cropped oddly in formatting but you get the idea.

@BlackKittyKat

My little one had this recently. He looked awful and had the bruising you describe.

I called GP and they said just to consider wiping with the cooled boiled water and they would clear.

I felt awful as they looked so painful and were clearly bothering him. We managed to get some drops from the pharmacy (just over the counter drops) but he was too distressed for us to get them in his eyes.

Thankfully the GP was right and it did clear up within a week. We just kept constantly wiping them and they eventually cleared.

Good luck OP. It's horrible to see them like that.

Thank you! This is reassuring.

Dd used to get this a lot and like you say her eyes never looked bruise. She was never actually given drops for them. J was told to just keep cleaning. Unless the infection is really bad antibiotics often don't make it clear up any quicker. Further down the line I was told that my DD's gunky eyes wasn't actually true conjunctivitis but the gunk was being caused by the rather large glands at the back of her nose meaning mucus meaning that gunk was coming out of her eyes - but she's outgrown it now at 6.

Our Dr told us to use diluted baby shampoo

Chamomile tea.

One of mine used to get this every so often and I always made up a cup of strong chamomile tea and wipe with that once oit had cooled. The cup of tea can be kept covered in the fridge for a couple of days.

Try and get a reasonable amount of liquid in the eye.