What Should I immediately Do If Something Gets in My Eye?
If you don’t, there are a few things you can try. What you should do depends on what is in your eye and where it is.
1. First Steps
Before you start, there are a few things to keep in mind:
Here is a list of what not to do:
Do not use dirty hands. Wash your hands before rinsing your eyes. Using dirty hands can inadvertently lead to more objects in the eye or possibly lead to an infection.
Do not scratch or rub the eye. Rubbing can cause the object to scratch or tear the cornea, risking worse injury, infection, and discomfort.
Do not use a towel or other piece of cloth. Using cloth or tissue to try to remove the object can lead to further scratching, tearing, and discomfort in the eye.
Do not apply pressure to the eye. Applying pressure can lead to worse damage or injury.
Do not attempt to remove any embedded objects. Leave this task to a medical professional.
Always wash your hands before attempting to remove anything from your eye.
If you wear contact lenses, take them out to make sure they won’t be scratched or torn. In fact, the foreign body sensation may actually be caused by a torn contact lens, so don’t often try to remove a lens that isn’t there. This may aggravate an existing scratch.
2. How to look at your eye
Sometimes it’s hard to tell exactly where something is stuck in your eye. Make sure you have enough light to see what you are doing.
Follow these steps to check your eye:
Open it wide. You may be able to see the object in your eyeball.
Pull your lower eyelid down and look into the mirror.
Lift the upper lid up and look down into the mirror.
3. Small things
If the thing in your eye is a small blemish like dirt, sand, a bit of makeup, or a lint, there are a few things you can do to try to get it out:
If the speck is stuck on your upper eyelid, pull your upper eyelid down over your lower eyelid and release it. When your upper eyelid slides back, the speck can come out.
If the speck is on your lower eyelid, pull the eyelid out and press the skin underneath so you can see the pink part of the inside of the eyelid. If you can see the lump, you can try to get it out with a damp cotton ball, being careful not to touch the eyeball. You can also run a gentle stream of water over the inside of the eyelid.
4. When to take the eye out
Sometimes the help of clean water or saline is needed. Try it if:
- A spot on your eye does not come out
- There is more than one spot on your eye
- Chemicals get into your eye (in this case, use only water and continue rinsing for 15 to 20 minutes)
- Fill an eye container or eye cup (you can get eye cups at the drugstore). Dip your eye into it, then open and close your eye a few times.
Sometimes a team effort is required. You may need to lie on your side and hold your eye open while a friend drops water or saline into your eye from the side.
Once you get the object out of your eye, you should start to feel better within an hour or two.
5. When to Get Help
Your eyes are sensitive and delicate. Get medical attention immediately if:
- You get harsh chemicals in your eyes like:
- Something poked a hole in your eye.
- Something pierced your eye and got stuck there. Don’t try to get it out yourself.
- You can’t get dirt or sand stains out of your eye.
- It still looks like there is something in your eye after you have tried to get it out, but you can’t see it.
- Your eye bleeds.
- You can’t close your eye.
- Your vision changes.
- Your eye doesn’t feel better, or it starts to feel worse, even if you have taken the object out.
Source:webmd.com
