My 5 five year old son and I were washing the car the other afternoon. I use one soap that is a natural concentrate for just about everything. We were almost done and he spilled the soapy water bucket. Thinking we would need more he started adding soap to the empty bucket. I told him we were done and we didn’t need anymore. Well, somehow, I was on the other side hosing the car so didn’t see, soap ended up in his eye and it HURT! I thought maybe he got it on his finger and smeared it on his face. After talking to him, it sounds like some splashed up and hit him in the eye. The fact was, there was soap in his eye and it was painful. I had no idea how much soap or how it really got there. So we went inside and flushed it with tap water for 15 minutes like it said on the bottle, but not much relief. He reported a pain level of 1,000. So I got a little nervous and I read the bottle again and the words “get medical attention promptly” seemed larger than normal. Not really knowing what to do, I phoned the nurse advice line. We had flushed it, but it was still hurting and I started to slightly panic. I needed advice and was secretly hoping we just needed to flush it more. The nurse told me they were not familiar with “ linear alcohol alkoxylates” and I should take him to the ER just in case. Being an eye, and him complaining that it hurt on a pain level on 1,000, we were on our way lickety split.
We arrived at the hospital and they were super sweet. They were obviously familiar with what he was experiencing and said that the alcohol based products burn like heck. They took us back and had us flush his eye with a saline solution. The nurse was really patient and nice with us. He told us how nurses have to go through this process often as people spit on them etc. Errrr. (I won't go off on a tangent here!) He went on to say that it will take your breath away when the solution is going into your eye. That it won’t be comfortable and to just blink as much as you can to clear it out. It took maybe 10 minutes tops. That was it!
This of course got me thinking about all the junk in tap water. Duh! That can’t really be that great to flush the eye with. The solution the hospital uses is sodium chloride. Not trying to cut out the doctor or a trip to the ER! Always seek emergency attention right away and if you can treat something at home, it's still a good idea to follow up with your doctor. Especially when it's something as important as your eye sight! The doctor did come around and check his vision. No problems at all. Just a not very pleasant experience. Thank goodness! So I am now going to keep a sodium chloride eye wash on hand and I think everyone else should too. You just never know.
You can buy eye wash kits, or just the solution at your local pharmacy.
How to use it? Have the person lay on their side and run it down their eye, blinking as often as they can. Just remember it will take the breath away. It will be uncomfortable, but it will help. It’s always a good idea to follow up with a doctor to make sure that no damage was done. Eyes are important.
Love and Light!
