eyes «

Video: How Can You Get Something Out of Your Eye You Can’t See?

Fourth in a four-part series on eye problems.

I get a lot of specks of dirt, metal, rust, and other debris out of people’s eyes. Protective goggles keep out most foreign bodies, but it takes just the tiniest speck to make your eye all irritated and water like you’ve got a tree limb in it. Often the speck’s so small I need a magnifying glass—even a special microscope called a slit lamp—to see it. Sometimes the speck is already out and the person is feeling the scratch it left behind. Many find it hard to believe me when I tell them it’s the teeny scratch and not the speck that’s causing all that discomfort.

If a larger object hits the eye hard or anything appears to have punctured the eye surface, I refer the person immediately to an eye specialist. You should leave it alone. Don’t do anything until you can get to a doctor.

But, if it’s that tiny speck and you’re in a disaster situation where you can’t get to a doctor, here’s how to get something out of your eye:

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Video: How To See If You Break Your Glasses

by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

Did you ever see the Twilight Zone episode where the guy just wants to be left alone to read his books? The end of the world comes and he’s the only one left. He finds a library full of undamaged books and thinks he’s in heaven. He picks one up, and wouldn’t you know it? He breaks his glasses. Can’t see a thing without them, far or near.

I’d be the same way, about the seeing part I mean. Without my glasses I couldn’t tell a bear from a tree trunk. In a disaster, I’d be dead meat. Ah, but for the beauty of optical physics and simplicity of duct tape.

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Basic Stye Treatment: Always Do This, But Never Do That.

Drink your tea, treat your stye. Some people use teabags to treat their styes, but any warm, moist cloth will do.

by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

This is the second post in a three-part series on how to treat common eye problems.

Stye, sty, eye stye, (the medical term is a hordeolum)—whatever you call it, however you spell it, whether it’s external or internal (on the inner eyelid), a—let’s stick with stye—is a pimple. It’s a clogged-up, infected oil gland just like you get on the rest of the body. The problem is, this pimple is right smack-dab against one of the most precious and sensitive parts of your body: your eye. Because of that, you have to treat it with care.

The stye treatment with the best track record—the thing you always need to do first—the thing that will usually cure a stye—is also the simplest:

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Popular Posts

Video: How Can You Get Something Out of Your Eye You Can’t See?

Video: How To See If You Break Your Glasses

Basic Stye Treatment: Always Do This, But Never Do That.

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