Remove a Foreign Object From Your Eye
Take a minute to evaluate the health of your eye each and every time you get something in it. Some foreign bodies require an emergency room visit, but many others do not. However, the key to avoiding a visit to the eye doctor comes in giving immediate attention to the eye.
Instructions
1. Wash your hands before touching your eye.
2. Inspect your eye carefully using a mirror and bright light. If someone is with you, ask him or her to inspect your eye for you by gently lifting the lid and peering into all the corners of your eye.
3. Take from your medicine cupboard a bottle of sterile, isotonic, buffered-solution eyewash. Make absolutely certain that its label states "for use in the eyes."
4. Ask a family member to flush out your eye for you. Although it is possible to flush out your own eye, having someone else flush it is more effective.
5. Lie down on a bed or couch. Tilt your head slightly to the left side if your left eye is being flushed, and slightly to the right side if your right eye is being flushed. This allows the foreign body to flow out and away from your eye, rather than pooling in the eye.
6. Have your family member take a good look around your eye by spreading open your eyelids. If your helper sees a foreign object, he or she should be extra diligent in flushing that particular spot out with the solution.
7. Hold a handkerchief near the outside of the eye to keep the eyewash from wetting your pillow and pouring into your ear.
8. Dab dry the outside of the eye, and rest for 5 minutes, preferably with your eye closed.
9. Open the eye and see how it feels. Is the grittiness gone? Does light hurt your eyes? If not, your eye is most likely flushed clean. If the eye continues to feel irritated, flush it one more time.
10. Consider calling an eye doctor if, after two thorough flushings, the eye still feels irritated. Continued irritation could be an indication of a corneal abrasion, and in that instance, too much flushing could do more harm than good.
Tags: being flushed, family member, flush more, flush your, Foreign Object From, Object From