Pink Eye Health Video

Video Transcript

DR. RAJ PATEL: Hi. I'm Dr. Raj Patel, optometrist at Vancouver Contact Lens and Vision Clinic here in Vancouver Washington, and I'd like to talk to you a little bit about pinkeye. Pinkeye or medically known as conjunctivitis is an inflammation or an infection of that transparent membrane that lines the front surface of the eye that covers the white part of the eye. That transparent lining is actually called the conjunctiva. So when the conjunctiva becomes red and inflamed, we call that conjunctivitis. The cause of pinkeye or conjunctivitis is commonly bacterial or viral, and occasionally it has an allergic component. When this happens, when the eye undergoes this inflammation or infection, the blood vessels on the white part of the eye get a little dilated and then enlarged and then as the result, they cast this red-pink-colored hue onto the white part of the eye and that's where we get the name pinkeye or red-eye. Again, it's just kind of a common word, pinkeye or red-eye, they are used loosely to describe a group of problems called conjunctivitis. Though most of time the inflammation or pinkeye is an irritant and it's bothersome, it typically doesn't affect your eyesight. Some types of pinkeyes can be contagious though, and so it should be diagnosed and treated early. This is especially important in preschool-age children who commonly develop both the viral and the bacterial component and they to just pass it on from child to child. So pinkeye, although can be irritating, it is usually harmless, but in certain cases, they can be a little bit contagious, so it's important to get it checked out, especially within the first two weeks of its onset, that tends to be the time frame that it tends to be most transmittable from patient to patient. Some of the symptoms that are associated with pinkeye include redness or itchiness or one or both of your eyes and some sensitivity to light, a gritty feeling with the eyes, tearing occasionally, and discharge, especially the discharge tends to be more prominent in the morning when you wake up and that sometimes is described as a matted or stickiness to the lids and the lids are a little bit tough to open. This pinkeye is typically diagnosed with the symptoms and also through the kind of a microscopic exam of the front of the eye that the eye doctor will do for you. The treatment of pinkeye is based on the origin of the problem, so if the pinkeye tends to be bacterial in nature, we will typically prescribe some antibiotic drops or ointments to help deal with it. If it's viral, it tends to run its course, and so we typically will ask the patient to use some over-the-counter drops, antihistamine drops, or artificial tears to help control the symptoms and let it run its course similar to a common cold. And in those individuals that we have the allergic type of conjunctivitis, we'll typically prescribe some anti-inflammatory or antihistamine eyedrops. So the take home message is that if you tend to have some of these symptoms or if your child has some of these symptoms suggestive of the pinkeye, make sure and have them checked pretty promptly especially within a few days of the onset because the quicker it's treated, the more likely we are to reduce the spread of the disease.