Baby's sticky eye ...

[Ghosty]

Hello ..
DD has had a blocked tear duct since she was born 11 weeks ago. It has gone green and yucky 4 times now and I am getting a bit fed up with it. We have had 3 lots of antibiotic eye drops and we have been massaging it everyday to try and unblock it. To no avail.
It is now looking pretty bad and the skin around her eye is all red and slightly puffy looking ...
Should we go back to the doctor? What if they just give us more drops ... it will only come back again ...
Any advice?
TIA
Ghosty xx

if you want to try something different, Bioforce Echinacea (anti-bacterial and boosts immune system); Solgar ABCdophilus (friendly bacteria for babies, will counter-act any side effects or all the antibiotics and will boost immune system).
both can be added to bottle of formula. I have used both thing on my ds and dd.

Thanks for the reply gloworm ...
I can't give DD anything like that though because she is breastfed! I am not worried about the antibiotic drops as I know that my breastmilk will counter act any nasties going on ...
I was kind of hoping that someone had any ideas on how to get the eye to stop being blocked ...

Poor you and poor dd, we had this with both ds and dd and I would recommend that you go back to the GP. Our ds was actually allergic to the drops so was prescribed some antibiotic cream instead which did work. Good luck!

have never tried this but is suppossed to help clear sticky eye...soak a camomile Tbag in freshly boiled water, wait until cool, use this water to wash eye.
Sorry dont know of any way to stop eye getting blocked in first place.

Ghosty, if you are breast feeding, you can use breastmilk to clear up the sticky eye. Try squirting some milk into the eye. It was what I was advised by my mw/hv for ds and it worked a treat.

Oh, poor little love. Dd2 had this but it cleared. Have you tried cleaning it wiht breastmilk too?

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OH ghosty that was me too!

None of hte dsolutions worked for ages until I worlke dout where I should have been massaging and then it went!

are you sure you have the right place?

Definaly treat her eye with breastmilk. Blocked duct may not clear until 8-9 monthsunfortunately. That is what happened with my neice. Breastmilk is a recognised treatment for eye infections.

Breastmilk works, it took a few weeks on ds but then cleared up totally. tincture of eyebright diluted and applied with cotton wool pad might help too (can get it from neals yard). hth

Both of mine had sticky eyes almost from birth, ds's was so bad that we got refered to Moorfields. The consensus was that if one or two courses of antibiotics don't work, then there's no point treating with antibiotics at all. (I hadn't heard about being allergic to the drops and using cream instead - sounds very reasonable to me especially if her eye is red and puffy.) With both babies we ended up doing the massage, washing with tea, and bathing with breastmilk to keep the symptoms under control, and just had to wait for it to clear up on its own. DS's cleared up by about 4m, IIRC, and dd's rather later by about 7m. It is often caused by the tear ducts not being open, and whether or not the baby cries tears is irrelevant because the tear ducts drain the eyes, not produce tears.

Are you massaging the right place? Also, make sure you change her sheet - or place a fresh muslin under her head - every day.

Recently ds had an eye infection that spread to both eyes, and I cleared it up by bathing his eyes with tea and breastmilk - luckily I'm still bfing his sister!

Ok ... thanks for all of that! I did try squirting breastmilk in but she is too wriggly ... and I always miss! I will try to do what you suggested Twiglett with the cotton wool ...
I am massaging every day .. I think it is in the right place because when I start all sorts of gunge comes up and out of the duct into her eye ... poor baby ...
Thanks for the replies peeps

It does sound like you are massageing the right place.

You can get packets of tiny individual bottles of 'artifical tears' in the contact lense section at the chemists. They are very useful to have in the changing bag for cleaning up the gunk when you are out and about because you can (with practice) drip them right into the baby's eye in a second, then wipe away with cottonwool. Just make sure that you get the ones that are pure saline, no preservatives or eye-brighteners.

I found I had to express into a container because babe kept trying to suck the nipple and I couldn't get my aim at her eye right

Ladies, where IS the right place to massage? GP/HV has not shown me or mentioned this, and at 12m my dd's tear duct has not yet cleared. She keeps getting sticky eye and I'm mad with myself for not searching old mumsnet threads yonks ago and finding out about MASSAGE.