Home remedy for scratched eye

You may sometimes get some foreign object in your eye - this is a very common and often-encountered problem. Depending on whether the foreign object is just a speck of dust or some tiny sharp thing embedded into your eye, you will need to take different approaches to get it removed. Here are a few dos and don'ts when you feel that something has gone into your eye:

• Do close your eyes gently and blink a few times. This will be helpful to clean the eye if the foreign material is just some dirt or dust particle.
• Do roll your eyeball up and down and sideways to locate the foreign particle. Get someone examine your eye when you do this so that the particle can be located easily. Sometimes, such eye movement itself can dislodge the foreign object.
• Do rinse your eye with ample amount of water to clear out the foreign object. You can splash water directly into your eye or you can cup your hand under a running tap and put your eye under the water flow. You can also try to wash your eye with mildly saline water, for example, the solution used to wash contact lenses so that the foreign particle is washed out.
• Do consult a doctor immediately if you experience that something is embedded into your eye. Don't try any of the above steps if there's something embedded into your eye.
• Don't rub your eyes, however tempting it may feel. Rubbing your eye can scratch the cornea (the white portion of the eye) and cause damage to the several nerve endings that are spread throughout the cornea. Scratching the cornea can cause lot of pain and can complicate the situation further.
• Don't fiddle with the eye yourself if you see something embedded in the eye. Also, don't let anyone else touch and remove the embedded particle. Seek immediate medical attention and visit an ophthalmologist.

If you happen to somehow scratch the eye while taking out the foreign particle, you should contact an eye specialist immediately or at most within 24 hours. Following a scratch in the cornea, you may experience severe pain, watering of the eye, headache, and blurry vision. Do not try and fiddle with the eye too much in such conditions. Although the symptoms may seem extremely annoying and disturbing, you will need to exercise a lot of patience, by avoiding any action that will aggravate the condition.

answered by G M

The best thing to do when you have something stuck in the eye is to blink rapidly. The rapid blinking tends to cause profuse tear formation in the eye, and we hope the ensuing flow might wash away the particle stuck in your eye. Please do not, under any conditions rub or scratch your eyes, as this might lead to your natural lens getting scratched.

Use saline solution (like the solution that you wash contact lenses in) to wash your eyes and rinse them. If saline water is unavailable, use clean cold water in the same way. Again, never rub your eye while doing this. Just splash the water with some force on your eyes. If the rapid blinking and water rinsing doesn't seem to help, you should consider getting your physician to prescribe you the right eye drops for such a predicament.

If you have already scratched your eye, it might feel like you have sand in your eye. The symptoms of headache, tearing and blurry vision will follow. The best thing to do in such a situation is to visit an eye specialist. Do not, under any circumstances try to force the particle with sharp objects or excessive manhandling of the eye. The 'something stuck in my eye' syndrome is an irritating, trying thing to happen to anyone. Exercise patience.

answered by G R