Oogy eye

Technically known as conjunctivitis. Not pinkeye, that's caused by a virus, my GP informed me. Then he said he couldn't tell for sure whether a bacterium or a virus was behind my oogy eye , and prescribed me chloramphenicol eyedrops. Now before we get excited about automatic unnecessary prescription of broad-spectrum antibiotics leading to increased resistance developing in the population as patients fail to complete their courses of medication (indeed an important issue), this is absolutely normal procedure for conjunctivitis, especially when a baby is involved. To discover whether it's a viral or bacterial infection, he'd have to take a swab and send it to a hosptial lab, and waiting those extra days could be unnecessarily agonising for me and the Hungry Mouth.

Of course, if it were viral, we'd just have to wait it out for up to ten days, and chloramphenicol wouldn't help at all, as it attacks the protein coats of living organisms only (viruses aren't technically alive). But my GP thought it likely that it was bacterial conjunctivitis, perhaps because it wasn't as painful as it would have been were it viral (so my optician friend tells me). Chloramphenicol attacks a very wide range of bacteria, and has nasty side-effects on a patient's liver and other organs if ingested, but these side-effects are avoided if the antibiotic is used only topically (in this case, only in the ye).

Conjunctivitis is pretty catchy; we were extra careful about sharing towels with Hubby and such. But he didn't get it.

Anyhow, I squirted the eyedrops onto the matching green goo in my eyes and in the bright-as-a-button eyes of the Hungry Mouth (she did not have it as badly as I did at all). And in less than 12 hours there was a noticeable, wonderful improvement. The swelling reduced, the itching lessened, the copious goo production slowed, and my eye could once again view the world without painful blinking. Really, antibiotics are a miracle! Though, of course, I completed the course!