I’ve been a little distracted lately. My fianc
é and I have been so busy moving him into his new condo, I’ve
barely noticed anything going by in the last week and a half, but
as I got up from the interminable task of redoing the contact paper
in every bloody drawer of the new place’s bathroom, I stopped.
I’ve been a little distracted lately. My fiancé and I have been so busy moving him into his new condo, I’ve barely noticed anything going by in the last week and a half, but as I got up from the interminable task of redoing the contact paper in every bloody drawer of the new place’s bathroom, I stopped.
One of my eyes was a different color from the other, and I don’t mean in the cute Kate Botsworth way. I mean the white of one eye was, um, not white.
“Honey! I think there’s something wrong with my eye!” I cried.
“What are you talking about? One’s a little blood-shot, that’s all,” he cooed, looking straight at the eye that bore a striking resemblance to the color of Barbie’s Dream Car or Dream House or pretty much anything associated with the nauseatingly bright shade of the curvaceous doll.
Unlucky for me, I’d come down with what turned out to be a mild case of conjunctivitis, commonly referred to as pink eye. This lovely little happenstance is caused by an inflammation of or infection in the membrane lining the eyelids, known to physicians as the conjunctiva, according to the Medline Plus Medical Encyclopedia, an online publication provided by the National Institutes of Health.
Come to think of it, my eye was pretty sore at the time … and gooey. Ew!
Aside from eye pain, itching, blurred vision and increased tearing, conjunctivitis can also lead to the expulsion of pus from the eye, resulting in crusts that seal the eyes closed overnight in some cases or, as in my case, simply making a person’s eye irritatingly difficult to open.
Most cases of pink eye, especially those easily spread among children in the school setting, are viral.
The eye is continuously exposed to bacteria and is fairly good at washing it away using enzyme and antibody-laden tears to do the dirty work.
The condition can even be caused by allergies, exposure to chemicals or extended-wear contact lenses, but bacterial conjunctivitis is the only form of the infection that can be cured by the mild antibiotic drops that are routinely dispensed with the diagnosis, according to the site.
Most cases of the disease are resolved without trouble, but the one case of conjunctivitis that is imperative to catch is the form found in newborns.
Babies can lose their sight if infections, caught from bacteria found in the birth canal, are not treated immediately, according to the NIH.
Allergen-related pink eye can normally be resolved either with treatment for allergies or when the allergen that caused the inflammation is removed, according to my physician, Dr. Jocelyn Lim.
Otherwise, resolution becomes a waiting game. The viral form of the disease disappears on its own, but is very contagious, so isolation is recommended if possible.
I worked from home two days this week and, when I was forced to meet people for face-to-face interviews, announced my predicament as a pretext for not shaking hands.
The best way to prevent the spread of pink eye is to wash your hands frequently and avoid rubbing your eyes, said Lim, who also noted that applying warm compresses to the eye could be soothing.
“Take a wash cloth and run it under some warm water, wring it out and just let it rest on your eyes for about 10 minutes,” she said.
Other things you can do to avoid contracting the infection include changing pillow cases frequently, replacing eye cosmetics regularly and not sharing eye cosmetics, towels or handkerchiefs, according to the NIH.
If you or your children come up with symptoms, don’t panic. The NIH only recommends seeing a doctor if symptoms persists three or more days.
