Ask your health care provider if his or her practice participates in telemedicine, and check with your insurance provider to see if this option is covered.
Pinkeye caused by a virus usually goes away without any treatment. Pinkeye caused by bacteria is treated with antibiotic eye drops or ointment. It can be hard to get kids to tolerate eye drops several times a day. If you're having trouble, put the drops on the inner corner of your child's closed eye — when your child opens the eye, the medicine will flow into it. If you still have trouble with drops, ask the doctor about antibiotic ointment, which can be placed in a thin layer where the eyelids meet, and will melt and enter the eye.
If your child has allergic conjunctivitis, your doctor may prescribe anti-allergy medicine, either as pills, liquid, or eye drops. You also can give acetaminophen or ibuprofen to relieve discomfort check instructions for correct amount. Using cool or warm compresses on the eyes may make your child more comfortable.
Clean the edges of the infected eye carefully with warm water and gauze or cotton balls. This can also remove the crusts of dried discharge that make the eyelids stick together in the morning. If your child wears contact lenses, your doctor or eye doctor may recommend that the lenses not be worn until the infection is gone. Then, disinfect the lenses and their storage case at least twice before letting your child wear them again. If your child wears disposable contact lenses, throw away the current pair and use a new pair after the infection is gone.
Doctors usually recommend keeping kids with contagious conjunctivitis out of school, childcare, or summer camp for a short time. Infectious conjunctivitis is highly contagious, so teach kids to wash their hands well and often with warm water and soap. They also should not share eye drops, tissues, eye makeup, washcloths, towels, or pillowcases. Be sure to wash your own hands well after touching an infected child's eyes, and throw away items like gauze or cotton balls after they've been used.
Make sure your child sees his or her healthcare provider for a diagnosis. It will also depend on the cause of the condition, for example:. To help prevent spread of the infection, wash your hands often when caring for your child. Because many bacteria are now resistant to erythromycin, it may not work as well as the silver nitrate did and can sometimes irritate the eyes.
Instead of treating all babies with the ointment, a better way of preventing these types of conjunctivitis is for all pregnant women to be tested for gonorrhea and chlamydia infections at their first prenatal visit. If they are infected, they need to be treated before the baby is born.
This helps the mother as well as the baby. Most women with gonorrhea or chlamydia have no symptoms. Their partners may also not have symptoms. The only way to diagnose all cases is to test all pregnant women. If you were not tested for gonorrhea and chlamydia during your pregnancy, you should be tested at the time of delivery or before you take your baby home.
To be tested, you need to either have a swab of your cervix done or provide a urine sample. If you are tested at delivery or after and you are found to be infected with gonorrhea, your baby will be treated right away. For all kinds of pink eye, you can use a warm compress like a warm baby washcloth to help get rid of crust and fluid discharge. A cool compress like a washcloth with cool water may help with swelling and puffiness.
If your newborn has pink eye caused by bacteria, the doctor may also prescribe an antibiotic. The type of antibiotic depends on the kind of bacterial pink eye your baby has:. Viral pink eye will usually heal on its own in 1 to 2 weeks, and pink eye from irritation will usually heal within 1 to 2 days.
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