Pink eye. Yuck. More appropriately, pink eye, or bacterial conjunctivitis, should have been named “gooey eye.” Caused by bacteria, the thin layer over the eyeball becomes infected.  Only after the gooey pus produced by the infection irritates the eye will the white of the eye turn red.

 I call pink eye the goo that will not go away.  When your child has a cold he may wake up with crusty eyes. But after you clean them up, the gooey discharge goes away until the next nap. If your child has pink eye, be on the lookout for other bacterial infections. When there is infection in the eyes, there may be infection in nearby parts of the body such as the ears or sinuses.

Antibiotic eye drops are the treatment for pink eye. After starting treatment, your child is contagious for 24 hours. Call your child’s school for their specific school/daycare exclusion recommendations. In general it is one day after starting treatment. Even if the infection is in one eye, to prevent spread into the other eye, place drops in both.

To prevent pink eye from spreading through your home, wash your hands before and after treating your child with drops, give your child his own towel to use, and in general try to prevent touching your own eyes after touching things your child has touched, such as toys.

If your child has pink eye, the infection may spread into the skin surrounding the eye as well as back into the eye socket. If there is swelling, redness, or tenderness of the upper or lower eyelids, the infection may be spreading. New high fever in a child with these symptoms can also herald a more severe infection.

A cold can predispose your child to pink eye.  Bacteria love to brew in the nose during a cold and you don’t want to inadvertently place nasal discharge from the nose into the eyes. Teach your child to wash his face from top to bottom.Wash eyes, then nose, then mouth. Pictured above is one of my patients who had pink eye.

The next you see boogies coming from the eye, even if the white of the eyes are clear… think pink.

Naline Lai, MD
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