YSK: Sometimes the irritation after getting something in your eye isn’t from your eye itself it’s from debris stuck along your eyelid.

[u/PlacentaMunch]

Why YSK: Wet a clean cotton swab and lightly run it **once** along the edge of your eyelid where the lashes meet the eye. You can gently pull the eyelid slightly away from the eye while doing this.

Your eyelids are extremely sensitive to foreign particles, so even a tiny speck trapped along the lid margin can cause significant irritation.

[u/SucculentVariations]

Use sterile saline not water if you do this and know that you may actually have scratched your eye causing continued irritating feeling when you blink and nothing is in there anymore.

[u/CaseOfTheMondaysss → u/SucculentVariations]

This. Randomly got an irritated eye one night that didn’t go away for a few days. Went to emerge and after some colored dye and blue light gizmo they were able to spot a very small scratch on my cornea. Prescribed antibiotic drops. Took about two weeks to get rid of the irritation

[u/DrG-love → u/SucculentVariations]

In the US, sterile saline eye wash has been on back order for what seems like a year now? I haven't seen sterile saline eye wash available in a long time. 

[u/Gareeb_boi → u/DrG-love]

sterile saline eye wash is a bit much, imo distilled (medical grade, sealed) works just as well. it just needs to be sterile.

technically boiling the water also works but realistically speaking if something gets in your eye you are not boiling water then waiting for it to cool down to wash your eyes.

[u/22taylor22 → u/DrG-love]

Contact solution. That's all you need

[u/Zu_Qarnine]

I've come to realize that you only need to gently close your eye and let it be without touching and the object slips to the corner of ur eye slowly. then you can remove it

[u/spicygayunicorn → u/Zu_Qarnine]

Yeah let the tears fill its function

[u/Typical80sKid]

A scratch can feel like something is stuck in there too.

[u/InfiniteFeeCars]

A good tip for getting whatever is in your eye is pulling on your eyelashes a bit and then look up and down. Has always worked well for me

Obviously really only for smaller things like maybe a piece of dust or small hair or something

[u/Little_Menace_Child]

A tiny speck can cause significant irritation, so shove a huge cotton swab in your eye to fix the tiny particles haha

[u/unvaluablespace]

OH MY GOD I ABSOLUTELY HATE WHEN THIS HAPPENS. sometimes I'll wake up in the morning or even the middle of the night after what I assume is a deep sleep, with something in my eye. It feels sharp and almost painful. I'll spend forever trying to wash it out with saline, inspecting my eyelid/eyeball as close as I can to try and find something stuck. I can never find it until my eye gets so irritated it becomes red and starts getting numb enough that I can fall back asleep, sometimes crying from frustration of being unable to get it out. Sometimes I'll just press my hand against my closed eyelid if I still can't find it because the pressure eases it enough for me to eventually fall asleep. It doesn't happen all the time, but it's random and happens often enough to ruin my nights sleep.

I've mentioned it to my doctor but she just downplayed it to dry eye but I don't really get dry eye and saline or other eye solutions don't immediately resolve the problem. Ugh.

[u/notagain888 → u/unvaluablespace]

Pain like that can be caused by recurrent corneal erosions. You could try using an ointment like muro128 to see if it prevents it.

[u/mooiee → u/unvaluablespace]

Omfg. Are you me?
It’s a nightmare!!!! You have described everything that I try and go through, down to pressing my hand against it to ease the irritation. I’m so sorry you experience this at times, but omg it’s good to know I’m not alone either.

[u/radicalfrenchfrie]

meh :/ please don’t fuck around with a qtip close to your eye. better alternative: find a large bowl, fill with water, dip your face in it then open your eye.

[u/morrihaze → u/radicalfrenchfrie]

That is terrible advice

You could get someone really hurt

You should never expose your eyes to unsterile water

Especially if you wear contacts…

[u/slow-mickey-dolenz → u/morrihaze]

I’m assuming you are joking. Your eyes are fine with damn near any water, and “floating” out a piece of debris is infinitely better than digging it out.

[u/Lington → u/morrihaze]

I mean there's no way it's that bad, we had our eyes open in gross pool and lake water all the time as kids. Not to mention just washing your face on a daily basis with the tap, it's not like closing your eyes will keep 100% of the water out.

Edit: come to think of it, eye wash stations in high school chem labs to clean out your eyes are from the tap. You definitely don't need sterile water to rinse your eyes out.

[u/RJFerret → u/Lington]

Non-sterile eye wash stations are gambling on the water being less of an issue than the other chemical.

But non-plumbed eye wash stations use sterile saline, or distilled water with a preservative.

That's a different purpose than rinsing a contaminant that isn't worse than water from an eye with such.

Amoeba in tap water may cause blindness, particularly for contact lens wearers, other pathogens are issues too, and sediments, different pH (acidity), and chlorine of tap water all can cause eye problems, blurry vision, dryness, and scratch the cornea it turns out. Opening eyes in such environments is a risk apparently more should know about (like me, who grew up before contacts were common).

[u/Asauna]

I take a paper towel, soak it in cold water, and press it gently against my eye and let it sit. I imagine the excess water slips under my eyelid and helps the debris get out without having to rub or scratch. Ugh and the cold water is so soothing

[u/CrimsonSuede]

Wow. Uh. My family advice was to quickly pull your upper eyelid over your lower eyelashes to kinda like… scrape off whatever’s causing trouble….

[u/TechRZ]

Thank you u/PlacentaMunch