Suspect Conjunctivitus - can a chemist deal with that ...

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or do I need to book an appointment with a GP?

The chemist can give you antibiotic drops and it'll sort it in a day or so!

Wahat age? Under the age of one the chemist will not sell you anything to treat it, they will tell you GP.

Assuming child rather than a baby, should be absolutely fine

She'll be 6 on Saturday. She has a cold. Today one eye started oozing 'snot' like stuff and I think the other eye is starting. Eye doesn't look too red to me but can't get second opinion from DH as he's colourblind.

So I can go straight to a chemist tomorrow morning and not have to fanny around with trying to get an appointment with a GP then - that'd be good.

Am wiping the oozy eye with cotton wool and 'cool boiled water' (takes me back to making up feeds!).

What's the situation regarding schools/conjunctivitus? Do I have to keep her off? It just started today (if that makes any difference).

if she feels well in herself and her eyes don't hurt, then you can probably send her to school.

I think generally schools are OK to accept fairly mild conjunctivitis. They only problme you might have is i think that you need to apply drops every 2 hours for the first day - school might not thank you for that

You know to use a different peice of cotton wool for each eye, right?

And I think someone told me salt in the water helps too. Although that could well be bollox

I always use saline solution to clean eyes. But I'm sure cooled boiled water works fine too.

Good point about seperate wipes for each eye.

Yup, got that about keeping everything separate for each eye thank you.

Will try the chemist tomorrow morning and see what he says. If he doesn't recommend anti-biotics's then will get some saline solution in a little eyedrop bottle.

Plan B is GP (gulp - what stress trying to get an appointment) and will take it from there - thank you very much.

Are you sure it's conjunctivitis? My ds oozes snotty mucous from his eyes when he has a really bad cold. If the eyes aren't itchy or red it might be this and it just clears up when the cold gets a bit better. I just wipe them with cotton wool and water. Hope it clears up.

Not 100% sure no. But she gets colds fairly often and this is the first time that I've had her oozing the stuff from her eyes. She says that they are 'sore' now but this might be because I alerted her to the whole concept and have been cleaning her eyes every now and again.

I suppose there's always the off-chance that she might wake up tomorrow morning and her eyes will be all right again ... that'd be nice Alternatively, her little eyelashes might get all gummed up/stuck together, which isn't so great with a young child who discovers they can't open their eye properly is it!

tbh, dd's school aren't keen on kids coming in with conjunctivitis, as it can be very catching. I have it atm, and am going in to help at dd's school tomorrow, but its only a bit red, a bit watery, and in one eye (plus I'm an adult and therefore can take responsibility for not rubbing eyes/washing hands carefully etc) - if its full on gunk, or very red, I wouldn't take her in, or maybe phone and check on policy first in case she gets sent home?

Suspect it's the same at ours Elibean and actually I certainly can't take her in as she is at the moment as the dishcharge keeps building up (which I need to keep cleaning away) and it looks unpleasant enough as it is, and that's putting aside how contagious it is.

Will get it sorted first then she can go back to school.

Erm, just sterile water and a bit of cotton wool would do. Far too contagious to be at school.

Poor little mite ... she's got a streaming cold, this afternoon she started what I'm guessing to be bacterial conjunctivitus and then at bath time she had the mother of all nose-bleeds which went on for quite a long time - have only just settled her down to sleep.

She's a wreck, my poor little girl!