So on monday night someone was holding some tools near my face that had some wood particles and small flecks of paint that had fallen on them from drilling into painted wood. I felt some irritation in my eye but I was not sure that I had actually gotten anything in my eye and am prone to eye irritation anyway since I have dry sensitive eyes. I couldn’t get to a sink to wash my eye right then so I hoped if I got anything in my eye it was a small speck of wood and hoped it would work its way out, after 30 min or so my eye felt better and I assumed it was gone, then 2 hours later my eye felt irritated again so I washed out my eye. The last couple days my eye has felt sore, particularly when using the computer, and I want to be sure there is no wood speck still in my eye. There is no redness or discharge. I have been to the eye doctor many times for things that got in my eye and after I washed it out and went there and they always say they didn’t find anything. I had heard that for metal specks in the eye that the eye will actually heal over them if you don’t wash them out within an hour or so, and then they have to scrape them off with a needle. Does anyone know if that is true for wood specks or paint specks or can you still wash out wood specks and paint specks after 2 hours?
I’m a hobby-ist lumberjack. I’ve got more wood in my eye than an Ikea coffee table.
Has it all washed out ok or have you ever had wood stuck in your eye?
If the pain comes and goes, that can be a sign that your cornea is scratched. I did it once. The treatment was drops (one to numb it if it got painful) and one to help it heal.
Your ability to rinse out any remaining wood (if there’s any present at all) would depend on where it was and how lodged in it is.
Have you looked at your eye in the mirror (up close) to see if you can see anything?
It may be a corneal abrasion. I’ve had them twice–they resolve on their own rather quickly (maybe a week?), but I had to get drops for pain.
ETA: I could not see anything wrong with my cornea, even looking in a magnified mirror, but the opthalmologist saw it under his scope.
If you have any Visine or something, try that. I bet it’s alright if it didn’t hurt bad in the beginning. Give it a day or 2. My son got dozens of metal filings in his eyes and all the eye-doctor did was rinse, rinse and rinse. He gave him pain relieving drops. In 2 days he was fine. No needles or surgery or any other visits to the doctor. He does wear his safety glasses religiously now.