Flushing Your Eye Correctly When Something Gets In

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Flushing Your Eye Correctly When Something Gets In

By Your Health Magazine Health Information Team

A gust of wind sends grit into your eye, an eyelash becomes trapped under your lid, or cleaning spray splashes toward your face. Your first impulse may be to rub the burning, watery eye, but rubbing can scrape the cornea or push debris farther beneath the eyelid. Knowing how to flush your eye safely can help remove a loose irritant while reducing the risk of additional injury.

Eye flushing is appropriate for many small, loose particles and chemical splashes. It is not appropriate when an object is embedded in the eye, the eye has been punctured, or a high-speed fragment may have struck it. Those situations require immediate medical attention without pressing, rubbing, or washing the injured eye.

How to Flush Your Eye Step by Step

For ordinary dust, sand, an eyelash, or another loose particle, first blink several times. Natural tears often wash away small irritants. If discomfort continues, follow these steps:

• Wash your hands with soap and water before touching your eyelids. If a chemical is involved, however, begin rinsing immediately rather than delaying to wash your hands.
• Remove contact lenses if they come out easily. Do not postpone flushing a chemical exposure while struggling with a lens; water may loosen it during rinsing.
• Use clean, lukewarm tap water or sterile saline. The water should not be hot, and the stream should be gentle rather than forceful.
• Tilt your head so the affected eye faces downward and slightly to the side. This helps water and debris flow away from the other eye.
• Hold the eyelids open with clean fingers. Let water flow across the eye while blinking and moving the eye in different directions.
• Continue until the loose particle is gone and the eye feels more comfortable. Do not repeatedly poke at the eye if rinsing does not work.

You can rinse over a sink with a gently running faucet, use a clean cup to pour water across the eye, or stand in a shower and let water run from the forehead over the affected eye. An eyewash station is the best option in a workplace or laboratory when one is available.

What to Do After a Chemical Splash

A chemical splash is more urgent than a typical speck of dust. Household cleaners, detergents, solvents, garden products, concrete mixtures, and automotive fluids can injure the surface of the eye. Some alkaline products, including drain and oven cleaners, may cause especially serious damage.

Start flushing immediately with plenty of clean, lukewarm water. Hold the lids open and rinse continuously for at least 20 minutes. If only one eye is affected, position it lower than the other eye so contaminated water does not flow across the face into the unaffected eye. Remove contact lenses as soon as they can be taken out easily, but never delay irrigation to do so.

Do not try to neutralize one chemical with another. Vinegar, baking soda, oils, ointments, milk, or homemade mixtures can worsen irritation or delay effective rinsing. Unless a medical professional directs otherwise, use only water or sterile saline. Keep the product container or note the chemical’s name so emergency professionals can identify the exposure.

After rinsing, contact Poison Control in the United States at 1-800-222-1222 for guidance and seek prompt medical evaluation. Severe pain, vision changes, significant redness, or exposure to a strong cleaner or industrial chemical warrants emergency care immediately after irrigation. Continue rinsing during transport if instructed and if it can be done safely.

Mistakes to Avoid

Rubbing the eye

Rubbing may drag grit across the cornea, the clear tissue covering the front of the eye. A corneal scratch can cause pain, tearing, redness, light sensitivity, and the lingering sensation that something is still present.

Using a strong stream of water

High water pressure may increase discomfort and potentially worsen an injury. Use a steady, gentle flow that moves across the eye rather than blasting directly into it.

Touching the eye with tools

Do not use tweezers, fingernails, tissues, or cotton swabs on the colored part of the eye. Never attempt to remove anything that appears stuck or embedded. Covering the eye loosely with a rigid shield, without applying pressure, may help protect it while you obtain emergency care.

Using contact lens products incorrectly

Sterile saline labeled for rinsing may be used, but contact lens disinfecting products are not substitutes for eyewash. In particular, never put hydrogen peroxide-based lens-cleaning solution directly into the eye. After tap water has contacted a lens, do not immediately put that lens back in. Follow proper disinfection instructions or replace it.

Assuming every red eye needs flushing

Flushing helps remove substances from the eye; it does not treat every cause of redness. Infection, allergy, dry eye, inflammation, and other eye disorders may need different care. Readers can learn more through this overview of eye diseases and common vision problems. Redness concentrated around the cornea may also have causes beyond a simple irritant; understanding ciliary flush and its relationship to eye health can help explain why certain patterns of redness deserve attention.

When You Should Not Flush the Eye

Do not rinse an eye that has been punctured or has an object visibly embedded in it. The same caution applies after hammering, grinding, drilling, mowing, or using power tools if a metal, glass, stone, or wood fragment may have entered the eye at high speed. Do not remove the object, press on the eye, or tightly bandage it. Seek emergency medical care.

A significant blow to the eye also needs evaluation, especially when accompanied by bleeding, an irregular pupil, double vision, reduced vision, severe swelling, nausea, or headache. Flushing will not treat internal eye injuries caused by impact.

When to Seek Care

Contact an optometrist or ophthalmologist promptly if a particle will not rinse out or if pain, redness, tearing, light sensitivity, blurred vision, or a gritty sensation continues after flushing. Persistent symptoms may indicate debris under the eyelid, a corneal abrasion, or another injury requiring an eye examination.

Go to an emergency department immediately for any chemical burn, embedded or high-speed object, puncture, bleeding, severe pain, sudden vision change, or inability to open the eye. Chemical exposures should be rinsed first unless emergency personnel specifically advise otherwise.

Most minor loose particles can be managed by staying calm, avoiding rubbing, and rinsing with clean water. The key is recognizing when simple irrigation is enough and when the safest next step is urgent professional eye care.