sigh
Not my kids. Me. Blech. I haven’t felt this sticky, burny, ouchy, goopy yucky since grade school. And of course the doctor’s office hasn’t called me back yet and his first opening is in February.
Grr. Both eyes, no less!
File this under Mundane Pointless Things I Fervently Hope NOT To Share. I’m washing my hands like an OCD patient on crack. I even broke out the Purell my mother-in-law gives us every Christmas (that usually gets donated to my kids’ classrooms).
Last week, one of the kids at day care was showing major symptoms of pink eye – constantly rubbing her eyes, the goop, the glassiness, etc. When her parents came to pick her up, the day care provider suggested that they might want to take their daughter to the doctor and have her checked out.
“Oh, we already went. Yeah, she has pink eye.”
And these fucknuggets thought nothing of sending their kid to go play with a bunch of other children.
As of this morning, the tally is three new cases since last week, my daughter included. Some people seriously need a swift kick in the ass.
I love the combo of the thread title and the user name.
I told you not to use worsterchire sauce as an embalming fluid, but did you listen? nooo…
well, don’t come complaining to me when you start moaning for Braaaiiins!
Harelip! Harelip!
Oh no! Well, in their defense, most doctors and websites say that if you have bacterial conjunctivitis and are given antibiotic drops, you’re good to go back to school after 24 hours. Of course, who knows how many kids got infected before she was symptomatic, or if the doctor did a culture to make sure it wasn’t viral (which is contagious for up to two weeks no matter what you treat it with).
First thing I did this morning (well, after soaking my eyelids open!) was call the parents of the little one I babysit to warn them. I think that it should be their decision; I’m not so incapacitated as to not be able to provide good care, but there is a very good chance that no matter how diligent I am, he might catch it. Their call. Haven’t heard back from them yet.
Why on earth does your mother-in-law give you Purell for Christmas?
You have my sympathies - both for the Purell and the pink eye. The former is a strange gift. The latter absolutely sucks. I’ve never had it, but my son has and it looks uncomfortable. And oogey.
Just think, it could be worse. A friend of mine once got crabs because her boyfriend had them in his eyebrows. Now that was hard to explain.
Lovely. I work in an ophthalmology department and for most patients, we practice handwashing but don’t use gloves when doing simple things like basic checks, eye dilation, pressure testing, etc.
Unless the patient reports symptoms similar to conjunctivitis (aka pink eye). Then the gloves go on right away, we really wipe down contacted areas of the room immediately after the patient is done, etc.
IANAD/N so I’m not going to presume to advise the OP other than pushing to get seen by a doctor in case this is something that does require treatment. (Not all forms of pink eye do require treatment, and in fact not all are infectious, though I will guess that the OP’s form may or may not require treatment, and is leaning towards bacterial.)
Side note: It could also be keratitis, which is inflammation of the cornea. If that’s an infection-caused type it probably should get treatment. My husband had that a couple years ago and was extremely light-sensitive, bloodshot to the point where little white was left, and had an unspecified bacteria working away at his cornea. It was only in one eye, though. I dragged him to my workplace and he got in as an urgent care appointment.
WhyNot, you’re calling an ophthalmologist I hope? (Not an optometrist, they can’t prescribe meds.) And you’ve told the office staff that you think you need to be fit in to the schedule due to the problem, and described your symptoms?
Forgot to add: keratitis is more common in contact lens wearers than those who don’t wear them. It can also result from some less-common viruses, and possibly even herpes simplex (with ‘cold sores’) secondary to an upper respiratory infection. It also usually involves some pain. You didn’t mention being a contact lens wearer or not, so I wanted to clarify this.
Turns out conjunctivitis, if viral, can be secondary to an upper respiratory infection as well, but you didn’t mention having one.
Anyway, it probably is just pink eye, but do check back with the ophthalmologist’s office.
They never listen. I guess we’ll know if she kills Kenny.
I work at a daycare. One day last year one of my coworkers showed up with a red, weepy, itchy eye. I suggested, cautiously, that maybe she should get a doctor to look at that before coming to work in a daycare? To which I got a rather testy reply that the boss had already mentioned that, and she had called the doctor, and had an appointment for lunchtime, but he had said over the phone that it was probably an allergic reaction and it was perfectly safe for her to go to work.
It was apparently an allergic reaction; at least, thank Og, nobody else caught it.
She is no longer working with us, though for unrelated reasons.
Speedy healing, WhyNot, and wash those hands like the reincarnation of Dr Semmelweis.
My little darlings gave me pinkeye once upon a time. It was miserable, but fortunately it was the kind that responded quickly to medication so I presume it was bacterial. They each had it again a couple of times, but I managed to keep it from spreading either between themselves or to me. We all had the lobster hands to prove it.
Good luck, and call that doctor’s office and push for something sooner! Or even go see your family doctor; they’re quite capable of diagnosing pinkeye.
I do wear contacts, although not regularly. I was wearing them for about two of the last five days though. Gas perms. I was having some trouble breathing over the weekend, especially last night, but it never really developed into an active respiratory infection. It may just have manifested in my eyes instead of my lungs. Since we were at some small altitude over the weekend, and in a hot tub full of delightfully lung burning chemicals, I’m not sure if it’s viral or irritant based or if the breathing thing was due to thinner air. But my bets are on viral over bacterial; the discharge is all watery and sticky, but still tearlike, only clumping up overnight, not yellow and thick or puslike.
She is a strange, strange woman. Not quite as strange as her sister, however, who gives used, stained bathtowels for Christmas. Seriously. At least it had a hood on it. (And, I should note, she’s in no way poor; she owns three homes, one in Saudi Arabia.)
Yeah…well, no. Ready for my tale of woe? Short version: our Blue Cross policy got priced all out of our range, and so we were forced to cancel it and go on the state provided health plan (thanks to the fact that we’re breeders, our kids make even the adults eligible for health care paid for by the state). We just did this, and so we’ve never seen our assigned Primary Care Physician. So as a new patient, he won’t see me in his emergency slot. I was told I could go and wait in his waiting room for a minimum of five hours and he’d fit me in for an initial eval when he could, oh, and also see if he could give me something for the pink eye or refer me to a specialist.
Innit managed health care grand?
Fuck it, I’m going to a CVS Minute Clinic and paying the $59 out of pocket. I strongly suspect that the clinic doc won’t be able to give me anything for it anyway. But, as you say, we’re not docs and eye irritation really is one of those things that should be looked at, even if the answer really is, “Well, that sucks. Go home and wash your sheets and you’ll be fine in a week or so.”
At which point I’ll swing by Whole Paycheck for some calendula and chamomile and make some eye washes and call it a day.
I can beat that as far as weird goes. My guide dog in training got pinkeye once! My co-raiser was working at a summer craft camp and had to try to keep the kids from touching him because the vet said it was zoonotic. Have you ever tried to keep 8-12 year olds from touching a puppy? And I had a habit of wiping his eye boogers off his face and caught myself about to do it a few times while he was contagious.
I feel for you. I have seen how miserable people are with pink eye. My kids, luckily, have gotten my reaction to it, though – which is to say that as soon as the symptoms appear, and an appointment is made to verify that it is pink eye, it’s over and done. It passes through me in 24 hours or less, the kids take about 48 hours from start to finish.
In defense of the parent who brought the kid to daycare with it – well, I have none. Although I will tell a (somewhat, but not really) relevant story from my past. When my daughter had chicken pox, I called the daycare provider and told her that we wouldn’t be there for a few days and why. She called me back about an hour later, after having called all the other parents – the grand consensus was that they all wanted their kids to get chicken pox naturally and wanted me to bring my daughter to play with their kids. Meh. Maybe the parent of pink-eye-kid thought it works that way with pink eye?
I got pinkeye and an ear infection in the same week.
When I was 18. I felt not only itchy and miserable and in pain, but also like I was 5 years old.
sniff
My Mommy’s coming by to take me to the doc-in-the-box. I’m a little embarrassed at how relieved that makes me*. Of course, she’s thrilled that her little girl needs her today, even if her little girl is 34 years old! 
(Actually, she was coming by today anyway to fetch her granddaughter for a sleepover, but when I mentioned the pinkeye, she offered to drive me to CVS. Yay for moms! Even moms need moms sometimes.)
*Helen’s Eidolon, I’ve also read on several websites that one of the oft’ reported symptoms of pinkeye is overemotionalness and irritability - how weird it that?
One of my poor neighbors had pink eye. I kept very far away from her. Ouch. I hope your infection clears up very soon.
Actually, optometrists can and do prescribe medications, and get years of training in the diagnosis and treatment of bacterial/viral/fungal infections of the eye. If you’re having trouble making an appointment with your doctor of choice, I would definitely schedule a visit to your eye doctor’s office — either an ophthalmologist or an optometrist, as both are trained to treat conjunctivitis.
Thank goodness for CVS Minute Clinic! Walked right in and out, got me some eyedroppey goodness (I put the first drops in about 12 feet away from the pharmacy counter!) and was feeling relief within 20 minutes. Faboo.
I did get a bunch of herbs as well, but I think I might stash 'em in my medicine chest; these drops are pretty dang awesome, and I’d hate to use the goldenseal (an endangered antibiotic plant) when I don’t really need to.