May 22, 2018

This topic is of course near and dear to my heart. I have patients who everyday come in saying those words or they might say: “I have pink eye.”

So what does that truly mean and what should be done about it? When the eyes become pink or red it can mean a myriad of different things. We triage pain, inflammation of the conjunctiva (the clear tissue covering the white part of the eye), and possibly an infection. Here is a list of what it could be:

• Bacterial

• Viral

• Allergic

• Toxic

• Dry Eye

• Trauma

• Surgically induced

• Medication induced

• Could be systemic (from one of our body systems)

So as you can see, it would be very difficult to diagnose over the phone. There are so many aspects to diagnosing conjunctivitis. One of the most important questions we ask is: Is it affecting your vision? The answer to this question is so important because we don’t ever want to risk vision loss. It helps us decide how aggressively to treat the problem. We also ask about onset, duration, pain, swelling, discharge, coloring, glandular involvement, itching, burning, ocular, systemic, and medication history, and of course, how does it feel? So as you can see there is nothing simple about a “red eye!”

The take-home message is to please call us and we will always discuss your problem and schedule you for a medical appointment to diagnose, and treat your problem. Many of these problems could be sight threatening and/or highly contagious.

So the next time you wake up and your eyes are burning, watery, red, stuck together, itchy, or blurry… call us!

I hope you have a wonderful day and I hope you never have to call us, but we take pride in being your eye care provider. My team is very well trained and we welcome your call for any eye related question.

Take care and like the sign in my office says “Live With Passion, Laugh Out Loud, Love Deeply.”

- Dr. Joseph Day