scratching your eye can be a very painful experience
and depending on the size of the scratch and what scratches your eye
can make it very serious so in this video i'm going to go over what a corneal abrasion is
what it does to your eye and ultimately what you should do if you scratch your eye let's focus in
hey howdy everybody this is Dr. Neal Guymon, Dr. EyeGuy, with the channel that keeps your eyes
healthy and your vision clear now there are many different ways you can give yourself a corneal
abrasion you can scratch your eye with your own fingernail or your kid's fingernail you can poke
yourself with a pen or your makeup you can get a cat scratch or scratch it from a chipped contact
lens or a scratch from a foreign body like a piece of metal or wood shavings or a speck of
dust also from a tree branch or pine needles or a plant or other vegetation or even from a paper cut
now let's talk over some of the symptoms that you might experience when you have a corneal abrasion
or an eye scratch the obvious one being pain and we're talking significant pain and irritation
will make you want to cry type of pain a lot of times when people have an eye scratch it will have
a foreign body sensation it will actually feel like there's something in there in fact we see
this in the clinic all the time people will come in thinking that they actually have something in
their eye will look everywhere nothing in the eye but they have a big corneal abrasion and it makes
it feel like there's actually something in the eye you'll also have tearing because the eye will want
to flush and coat the eye with fresh tears you may also experience a headache or a brow ache or an
eye ache another common one especially if you have inflammation on the inside of the eye
is that you'll have light sensitivity your eye will actually hurt when you go outside
or you're around some bright light and also depending on where the corneal abrasion is if
it's near the central visual axis or if you have a lot of swelling edema from the corneal abrasion
then you might also experience blurry vision now let's go over what actually happens when you get a
corneal abrasion now the cornea is a clear dome right on the front of the eye that covers the
iris and the pupil and it's made up of a bunch of different layers now the outermost layer of
the cornea is called the epithelial layer and it's the area that's exposed to the air and your eyelid
and that's usually the layer that gets scratched now what's really interesting about the cornea
is that there are a lot of nerves in fact more nerves per area than really anywhere else in
the body so if you scratch the cornea you get a corneal abrasion you expose those nerves and can
be really irritating and really painful but what's also really interesting about the cornea is that
it can heal really fast depending on the size of the scratch a lot of times corneal abrasions can
heal in one to two days way faster than a scratch on your skin also what's super nice is that if you
just scratch the epithelial air it doesn't leave a scar in fact you probably won't have any visible
evidence that you even had a scratch to begin with now that's a good news there are a few things to
be aware of with corneal abrasions if the scratch goes deeper into the cornea crosses bowman's layer
then it can leave a scar and if you scratch it big enough or if you scratch it in the
middle of the pupil in the central visual axis then it could scar and it could potentially
permanently cause reduced vision another important thing is to know exactly what scratched your eye
if there's a possibility that bacteria was introduced it could lead to a bacterial infection
or even worse if there's the possibility that fungus was introduced either from a plant scratch
or other vegetation then it could lead to a fungal infection which can be very serious for the cornea
now this leads me to talk about the treatment of a corneal abrasion like i said the cornea can heal
really fast and it heals really well can heal on its own if it's mild in a top level surface
scratch a lot of times all you need is artificial tears to coat the eye and speed up healing time
if it's a little bit bigger and deeper scratch you might need an ointment for a little bit longer and
thicker coverage now sometimes your doctor will actually use a bandage contact lens we can use
contact lenses and actually put it on the cornea this will shield that scratch from the eyelid
or from the air it will help with the comfort level and also help with healing time as well
and sometimes when the pain is bad enough you can be prescribed pain medication
oral pain pills but a lot of times the oral pain pills doesn't target the cornea that well and so
efficacy is a little questionable there just really quick if you're finding value from this
kind of content definitely hit that like button for me thanks if people have an eye scratch
usually i tell people to go see your eye doctor to get the proper treatment sometimes you might need
a steroid eye drop to help reduce inflammation you might need an antibiotic if there is risk
that bacteria was introduced into the eye or an antibiotic eye drop just for prevention sake
the eye doctor will know when and what to prescribe now if you scratch your eye what
are the first steps that you need to do now first things first don't rub your eye especially if you
suspect something flu in your eye if you have a foreign body in your eye if you go and rub your
eye you can be digging that foreign body into your eye making the scratch even deeper or scratching
more surface area of the eye so remember don't rub your eye now it is okay to blink careful blinking
can help flush the foreign body out it can get the tears flowing and help coat that scratch a little
bit better so blinking is okay just be careful i do recommend rinsing the eye out especially if you
have a foreign body in there rinsing the eye out can help flush that foreign body out one of the
temptations will be to constantly pick at your eye or sometimes people take a q-tip and rub on the
surface of the eyeball or underneath the eyelid and sometimes that can actually do more harm than
good it can actually damage the eyes and if you're constantly picking and rubbing at it sometimes
that can actually cause an eye infection more from your hands and introducing something into
the eye and not actually the scratch itself now for sure once you've rinsed your eye even if you
feel like you got the foreign body out of your eye still call and go to your local eye care provider
they can see exactly if you have that foreign body out of the eye and also check the cornea
or the eye to see how bad the abrasion was if you're feeling light sensitive you can definitely
wear sunglasses to help with that definitely don't wear your contacts if you feel like you
have a corneal abrasion or if you feel like there's a foreign body in there just stay away
from the contacts until your eye is completely healed another temptation will be to use the
redness relief eye drops to get the red out of your eyes because your eyes will likely be red
but don't use the get the red out eye drops that actually can delay the healing a little
bit and sometimes it can be painful to put that eye drop in your eye now one thing about corneal
abrasions abroasions corneal abrasions is that they can turn into recurrent corneal erosions
and this is when that baby soft tissue doesn't adhere to the cornea very well and can actually be
re-ripped time and time again this usually happens when people wake up from sleeping now i'll have a
full video about that i'll put it right there when it's ready if it's not there definitely check out
my other videos make sure you're subscribed I'm Dr. Neal Guymon, Dr. EyeGuy, stay focused