Dr. King:
Hey, Dr…
Dr. Cha:
You good?
Dr. King:
I forgot my name.
Dr. Cha:
You’ll remember it eventually.
Dr. King:
Yeah. I’ve only been using it for decades. Hey y’all. Dr. King here.
Dr. Cha:
Dr. Cha.
Dr. King:
Today we’re gonna be talking about this broad spectrum topic called Pink eye. What is it? Is it contagious? What is it? Keep watching. We’ll find out. I know. I did the, what is it? Twice. So today we’re talking about a very broad subject called Pinkeye. Well, my producer said that we were gonna be talking about this today. I was like, Really! Man. What are we gonna do with this? That’s a really broad topic. We’re at least gonna tackle Pink eye today. So you may be wondering, what is Pink Eye? Well, that’s actually a garden variety term that covers a whole lot of different disorders. Literally, it’s describing anything that causes the eye to turn red or pink, that can be virus, bacteria, allergy, irritation. So we’re gonna kind of give you some general tips on what to look for and what direction you could be. You could be heading in.
Producer:
Dr. Cha, you have anything to add?
Dr. Cha:
Uh… No
Dr. King:
Um.. The most, the most common form of pink eye conjunctivitis is another thing to call it. The conjunctiva is literally just the white part of the eye.
Dr. Cha:
I’m trying to be a visual aid for you.
Dr. King:
Thanks so much. I appreciate it. The conjunctiva can turn red for many reasons. The most common I think we probably see walking in the door is viral. A virus such as a cold virus or something like that. You could, you get that in the eye. It doesn’t usually blow into the eye, but you, you touch something and touch your eye. And once you do that, you’ve inoculated the eye. And that’s the most common vector for most eye infections. Is, is touching. So a viral pink eye. Most of the time those have to run their course. Some more serious viruses like shingles virus. Now those need to be treated, but the one where the eye is just a little pink, it’s a little watery, it’s just gonna pretty much run its course. Whether we give you something for it or not. But there’s other, there’s bacterial, there’s other things. Those are gonna start getting more discharge. We’re gonna start getting goopy discharge. Mucusy discharge. You might need some treatment for that. If the eye’s hurting, go see your eye doctor. If your vision becomes in any way impaired, you need to get that checked out. Light sensitivity, increased. Light sensitivity that needs to be checked out. What else am I missing?
Dr. Cha:
I mean, pretty much covered it. You can’t, you don’t wanna assume, it’s pink eye or red eye, you know, they’re different shades of the same color.
And you know, pink might just be a precursor to red. So what you can do, and it’ll never hurt, is just keep the eyes lubricated using an artificial tear. But you never want to if you have like an old eye drop from something else that you’ve fought in the past, never just assume that it’s gonna do the same thing. Because, you know, different medications treat different things, and sometimes the wrong medication can make something worse.
Dr. King:
Like pouring gasoline on a fire.
Dr. Cha:
Yeah. So, yeah. Come let us see you. Let us make our professional judgment of how to take care of you best. Hopefully if it is just a, like a viral pink eye, like a cold in the eye, if you can even think of it. We’ll just encourage you to the finish line. But if it’s something more serious, especially if you’re like a contact lens wear, or if you do have serious allergies, you don’t really want to put it off because treating it earlier into its disease course or its state is gonna be a lot more manageable, a lot more comfortable for you down the line versus you, you’re trying to power through it and then it comes at a worse state. And we might need to, you know, use the big guns.
Dr. King:
You don’t want the big guns.
Dr. Cha:
No, you don’t. No.
Dr. King:
Yeah. We actually have a diagnosis called C.L.A.R.E contact lens associated red eye. So there’s, there’s so many things that can cause a pink eye or a red eye that, you know, you do need to talk to your doctor and pick through it. It’s best to see an eye doctor for that. Your primary care is great at bacterial and stuff like that, but they don’t, you know, you need to look at it with a microscope and talk to talk to your doctor about what you’ve been doing, what you’ve been exposed to. Because we’re gonna treat an allergic reaction far different than a viral or a bacterial reaction.
Speaker:
Okay.
Dr. King:
Myth Buster. We’re gonna bust that myth.
Dr. Cha:
You’re lively today.
Dr. King:
I’m feeling better.
Dr. Cha:
Yeah, that’s good. That’s good.
Speaker:
Okay. So the first myth buster is pink eye is always caused by a bacterial infection. True or false?
Dr. Cha:
So yeah. Pink eye is not always caused by just one thing, like a bacterial infection. When we think about infections, right. If you get a cut, you put Neosporin on it, right? It’s an antibacterial ointment. But there are other bugs and crawling around floating in the air. It could be a virus, you know, think of, you know, the cold or herpes or even covid. Those are viruses. Yes.
Dr. King:
Covid can cause a pink eye.
Dr. Cha:
Yeah. Those are treated much different than than an infection. You can’t just put Neosporin in the eye expecting a viral infection to go away. So, and as common as viruses are, they’re actually not the most common. Like Dr. King was saying, viral infections are what we see more commonly. So don’t assume it’s a bacterial infection and grab your Neosporin.
Dr. King:
Yeah. Antibiotics only treat bacteria. There’s a common misconception that you just use an antibiotic for any kind of infection. And it’s like, it’s gotta be bacterial, not viral, that kind of stuff.
Dr. Cha:
Yeah. I mean, before I went to school, I thought, yeah, Neosporin, it’s all, everything. So that’s my
Dr. King:
Kinda like the dad of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Windex. The Windex is everything. Please don’t put Windex in your eyes.
Speaker:
Okay. The next one. Pink eye only affects children.
Dr. King:
Ooh. Pinkeye does not only affect children. In fact, I mostly treat parents whose kids had a cold and they ended up with a pink eye from their kids cold. Because they’re wiping and then they touch. That’s that inoculation thing I talked about. So pink eye can affect anybody at any age. It’s not discriminatory. Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:
Pink eye’s is highly contagious once you have it.
Dr. King:
Contagious, depends on the cause. The viral ones tend to be pretty darn contagious. There’s one called Epidemic Keratoconjunctivitis, EKC. That God, just look at somebody with that and you get it. Not really. Just kidding. But it’s usually shed in the tears or something like that. So, you know, a good rule of thumb, any kind of redness, watery eyes, you know, if you do anything, wash your hands, wash your hands. You know, part of my treatment is we wanna keep it isolated to the person who has it. And you live, you know, so other people in the house use a separate towel. You wash your pillowcase every day so that you don’t spread it from one eye to the other. Just rolling over. Separate hand towel in the house, and just the general hand washing.
Dr. Cha:
Yeah. I think you touched on it. You know how contagious some of these can be. You mind just having it in one eye and then over the next few days you’re developing the other eye. Because literally maybe you, you know, swipe across your face. And then you in inoculate or kind give your, give yourself the infection in the other eye.
Dr. King:
Yeah. It’s not gonna walk across your nose. You have to put it there.
Dr. Cha:
Right. Right.
Speaker:
Do you wanna take pillows and farts?
Dr. Cha:
Oh God. Sure.
Dr. King:
I am not!
Speaker:
Pillow plus farts equals pinkeye.
Dr. King:
Aye.
Dr. Cha:
I mean, I thought it was real until I went to school.
Dr. King:
I’m glad your education paid off.
Dr. Cha:
Dividends, obviously. Yeah. So, no, that is a, a myth.
Dr. King:
We’re gonna bust that myth.
Dr. Cha:
Yeah. We’re gonna bust that one.
Dr. King:
Bust it.
Speaker:
Where did it come from? Like, who started that?
Dr. Cha:
That’s a great question.
Speaker:
A movie or something. I bet it was a movie.
Dr. Cha:
Probably it wasn’t media. Maybe some coincidental, you know, like, here’s, here’s what I imagine, right? Kids are at like a, like a summer camp or something. And like, the bumps are like reused, maybe not taken care of. It’s not a hotel, it’s not the, it’s not the Hilton, right? It’s just like a bunk and, you know, they’re messing around. And then one kid’s gonna eventually fart on a pillow. The counselor’s gonna tell ’em, Hey, shut up. Go to sleep. And one of the kids wakes up with pink eyes, hey you farted on my pillow,
Dr. King:
We’re blaming summer camp for pillow plus farts equals pinkeye.
Dr. Cha:
Yeah. I dunno. That’s my head fantasy.
Dr. King:
Okay. Okay. This is gonna be my new day job. I’m gonna, I’m gonna retire. Eye care. I’m just gonna talk about it.
Dr. Cha:
For more Days Of Our eyes content, go ahead and subscribe like the video, interact with us. Leave a comment. If you have some questions, just drop a question in the Dropbox.
Dr. Cha:
And we’ll try to get back to you with you know, best answers as we can to give you over the internet. Anything else you wanna leave it with?
Dr. King:
Just remember to subscribe and we’ll see you next time.