Conjunctivitis...and tea?

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DS (20 months) has picked up conjunctivitis at nursery a couple of times. It starts with dishcharge and then the eyes turn red and swell. Antiobiotic drops from GP saw it off pretty quickly.

I promised myself that if I would treat it much sooner in future to avoid the other symptoms.

So now DS has the horrible yellow discharge on both eyes, worse on waking. The same GP said to treat it with strong, cooled black tea.

I am happy to try this and the internet says it's good. If it works then a natural remedy is a much better option.

Does anyone have experience of this and whether it works?

Yes, it helps ime,use a separate piece of cotton wool for each eye.

Yep, definitely seems to work. Camomile tea works well also.

although I do sometimes wonder if it's just the cooled boiled water cleaning the gunk away that does the really work.

Whatever the reason, it's still my first port of call for gunky eyes.

I wash my eyes with Johnstones baby shampoo, honestly, it clears any gunk and doesn't sting.

I tried the tea trick but it didn't do anything for my 2 year old. 4 days and it wasn't shifting so had to get drops from the dr.

Incidentally my 8 year old now has it (about 2 months after the baby so not related) and we've gone straight for the drops from the pharmacy.

Breastmilk works really well if you have any available...

Conjunctivitis is self limiting and will clear without treatment. I recommend cleaning the eye with cool boiled water for a few days and only if it gets worse using drops.
It can also be caused by a virus which antibiotics don't treat so they might not work anyway and you've wasted £6.

Thought I'd update on this after a miraculous recovery in case it's useful to others.

Used very strong, cooled builders tea (on separate cotton wool pads) at bedtime and the next morning DS's eyes were completely clear. Not even a hint of gunk. Previously, his little eyelashes had been glued together in the morning.

I used it morning and evening for 2-3 days and there is no sign of it returning. Amazing.