Question about conjuctivits.

[meggmoo]

Poor ds is miserable with conjuctivitis he got diagnosed yesterday after a couple of days of redness. His little eyes were caked this morning.

Can I ask:

How long before it goes - usually?
How do I de-cake his eyelashes? (have tried warm water and cotton wool balls but his lashes are still pretty solid)
How exactly do you catch it?

you catch it through contact. i.e. carrier rubs eyes touches something you touch it rub eyes and hey presto. dd had a mild case which cleared up in a matter of days. if it is really bad might need antibiotic cream. try alittle baby shampoo on a warm flannel to clean.

We had this over christmas, both dd's and I had and it is very infectious. You can use Brolene, which you can get over the counter or you may need an anibibiotic cream which we had to use. Once on the antiobiotic cream it went within a couple of days.

hi meggmoo

this went through our whole family recently me included, very contagious keep own towel et cfor ds regularly bathe with cool boiled water and if ds has been given drops he should be better by tomorrow, give him lots of tlc

good luck x

dd2 has it

I bought Optrex antibiotic drops from the pharmacy (no prescription required). I have been putting them in for two days and her eyes looks tons better. I wash them in the morning with warm water but I remember my mum used to use warmish olive oil on us when we were little.

DD has it, tail end (I hope) of very heavy, snotty cold. Its probably viral, but the nurse gave us Chloramphenicol (antibiotic) drops anyway - the redness went away after three treatments, and the caked-ness after one. She still woke up this morning saying her eyes hurt, but they look almost ok.
The addiction to plain choccy polka dots (first time I've resorted to food bribery, just couldn't think how else to get a 2.1 yr old to lie still for stingy eyedrops!) may take a lot longer to dissipate...

That's great thanks - will try the warm water and olive oil trick and perhaps keep a couple of sqaures of choc handy.

I am battling with these drops at the moment. I am not convinced any of it is going in. It is really hard to hold 18 month old, pin his arms and prise his little eyes open. plus this is day 3 and his eyes are still gunky. any tips anyone?

Decaking eyes - we would just have several goes with warm water and cotton wool, leaving a bit of time for it to soften between each one, and eventually it could be wiped away or gently pulled away.

What effect the drops will have depends on if its viral or bacterial. If it hit both eyes at once at around the same time and he's had other cold-like symptoms then it's probably viral.

Assuming viral, the antibiotic drops are still a good idea because eyes that are all gunky with viral conjuncitivitis are an ideal environment for bacterial conjunctivitis to settle in, but they won't actually do anything to cure the viral infection - you just have to let that run its course. When DS had conjunctivitis I think the whole thing lasted about a week (probably slightly over for the last of the gunkiness to go) and the worst day (peak gunkiness) was around day 3-4.

DT2 had this a couple of weeks ago and it was impossible to get the drops into her eyes. She is 3.5 years so we wrapped her in a towel to trap her arms and the GP suggested that if we couldn't get her to keep her eyes open, to put the drops over the closed eyes and to rub along them. This seemed to work for us

its a nightmare. wrapping in towel is a good idea. he wouldn't come near me yesterday for fear of being grabbed or having his nose wiped. honestly, its one step off abuse isn't it! thanks for info Leah you sound very knowledgeable. I think it is viral as he has a horrible cold too.

Message deleted

did the towel thing - great idea.